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(1897-1994)<\/p>\n
Traditionally affiliated with Belgian surrealism, like Ren\u00e9 Magritte, Paul Delvaux fashions mysterious universes of great poetry, immediately identifiable. His works are akin to silent dreamlike constructions, deeply rooted in the history of the arts since antiquity. They are populated by nude or partially clothed female figures, whose frozen gestures and often absent gazes seem to belong to a suspended time.<\/p>\n
Of Belgian origin, Paul Delvaux’s bourgeois upbringing was a straitjacket. After completing his humanities in 1916, he studied architecture at the Acad\u00e9mie royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, a course he abandoned after one year. He returned to the Acad\u00e9mie in 1919 in Constant Montald’s studio, where he taught decorative and monumental painting. In 1924, Andr\u00e9 Breton published the Manifesto of Surrealism<\/em>, followed in 1928 by Surrealism and Painting<\/em>.<\/p>\n After years of apprenticeship and self-discovery, influenced by major trends such as Post-Impressionism and Expressionism with its strong James Ensor influence, several inspirations encountered in the first half of the thirties led Delvaux to develop his own universe. The Spitzner Museum, an anatomical and fairground museum, a sort of cabinet of curiosities, discovered at the Brussels Fair in 1932, revealed to him a “Poetry of Mystery and Worry”. In the spring of 1934, the <\/p>\n By the late 1930s, the foundations had been laid for Delvaux’s deeply dreamlike work as we know it today. The painter orchestrates unusual encounters of objects in frozen, silent atmospheres populated by figures who are absent from one another. Delvaux’s world of poetic reverie has obvious analogies with Surrealism. In 1938, the artist took part in the After the war, group and solo exhibitions and major retrospectives in Belgium and abroad multiplied. Delvaux’s work began to conquer the United States (Julian Gallery, New York, 1947). It acquired a certain notoriety there. Until the mid-sixties, however, the reception of his work was mostly lukewarm (Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, 1945; Galerie Drouin, Paris, 1947). His entries for the Venice Biennale were regularly criticized for their immorality and scandalous nature(Pygmalion<\/em>, 1939, Mus\u00e9e Royal des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, 1948). Above all, his submissions, on religious subjects and skeleton figures, to the 27th<\/sup> Venice Biennale in 1954, on the theme “The Fantastic in Art”, aroused the ire of Cardinal Roncalli, future Pope John XXIII, and the censorship of the exhibition for heresy. His retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum voor Schone Kusten in Ostend in 1962 once again caused a scandal. It was banned for minors. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In 1950, Delvaux was appointed professor of monumental painting at the \u00c9cole nationale sup\u00e9rieure des arts visuels in Brussels (La Cambre), where he taught until 1962. His first experience of decoration came a few years earlier, with the set for Jean Genet’s ballet Adame Miroir<\/em>, premiered on May 31, 1948 at the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre Marigny in Paris. His professorship at La Cambre undoubtedly led to a proliferation of decorating commissions, which continued well beyond his teaching period. The games room at the Kursaal in Ostend (1952), the Gilbert P\u00e9rier house, director of Sabena in Brussels (1954-1956), the Palais des Congr\u00e8s in Brussels (1959), the Zoology Institute at the University of Li\u00e8ge (1960), the Casino in Chaudfontaine (1974), costumes for Roland Petit’s ballet La Nuit transfigur\u00e9e<\/em> (1976), the Bourse metro station in Brussels (1978). <\/p>\n Delvaux’s work achieved recognition and consecration in the sixties, against the backdrop of cultural revolutions and liberation movements. Alongside retrospectives (Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts, 1966; Paris, Mus\u00e9e des Arts d\u00e9coratifs 1969; Tokyo, 1975 ; Brussels, Mus\u00e9es Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, then Li\u00e8ge, 1977) and the major exhibitions in which he took part, notably those focusing on Surrealism(Les Peintres surr\u00e9alistes<\/em>, Copenhagen 1966, and Peintres de l’imaginaire symbolistes et surr\u00e9alistes belges<\/em>, Grand-Palais, Paris, 1971), he accumulated prestigious nominations and awards until the end of the Seventies. <\/p>\n In 1962, he was appointed member of the Commission de Peinture Moderne des Mus\u00e9es royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Brussels, and the following year vice-director of the Fine Arts class at the Acad\u00e9mie Royale de Belgique. In 1965, he was awarded the Prix Quinquennal de Cons\u00e9cration de Carri\u00e8re: Cadet d’Honneur du Travail, Grand Officier de l’Ordre de L\u00e9opold. He was appointed President of the Royal Academy of Belgium and Director of the Fine Arts class. He is also appointed to the Board of Directors of the Academia Belgica de Roma. His first lithographs date from this period. <\/p>\n He was named Chevalier de la L\u00e9gion d’Honneur in 1975. Another exceptional distinction came in 1977, when he became a member of the Institut de France as an associate foreign member in the Fine Arts section. Two years later, on January 26, 1979, the Universit\u00e9 Libre de Bruxelles awarded him the title of Doctor Honoris Causa, along with Jean Starobinsky. 1979 also saw the creation of the Paul Delvaux Foundation, approved by King BaudouinI<\/sup>, one of whose aims was to set up a museum at Saint-Idesbald on the initiative of his nephew Charles Van Deun. At over eighty, the artist continues to paint. The Paul Delvaux Museum was officially inaugurated on June 26, 1982, and expanded several times until 1988. <\/p>\n His ninetieth birthday was celebrated with exhibitions in Belgium, France and Japan. On the death of his wife, Tam (Anne-Marie de Maertelaere), on December 21, 1989, Delvaux ceased his activity. In 1991, the renowned Salon des Ind\u00e9pendants in Paris devoted a retrospective exhibition to him, Paul Delvaux Peintures-Dessins 1922-1982<\/em>. <\/p>\n He died at his home in Veurne on July 20, 1994.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Paul Delvaux came to printmaking late in his career. In 1960, he was 63. By comparison, his contemporaries, born as he was at the dawn of the twentieth century, had been working in the field since the early thirties: Alberto Giacometti in 1931, Andr\u00e9 Masson in 1932, and Jean Fautrier since 1925. At the time, Delvaux was professor of monumental painting at the \u00c9cole nationale sup\u00e9rieure des arts visuels in Brussels (La Cambre). During a visit to the etching studios with his students, he tried his hand at etching with Buste de <\/em>femme, of which he produced two variants the same year. At the end of 1965, he produced his first lithographs – a technique that dominated his etching output. They were printed by Fernand Mourlot the following year. His \u0152uvre grav\u00e9 numbered around one hundred works up to 1975, twenty years before his death. Women are omnipresent, even more so than in his paintings. His compositions are strongly imbued with art history, from Antiquity to Giorgio de Chirico, via the \u00c9cole de Fontainebleau, among many other references. Le Silence<\/em>, for example, on view on rue de Seine, evokes the famous Louvre painting Gabrielle d’Estr\u00e9es et une de ses s\u0153urs<\/em>, 1575\/1600. <\/p>\n Finally, in two books, Delvaux’s etchings resonate with literary creations. The first, 7 Dialogues avec Paul Delvaux<\/em>, illustrates texts by Jacques Meuris (Paris, Le Soleil noir \u00e9ditions, 1971). Four of the five etchings, with their D\u00fcrerian accents, are presented on rue de Seine. The second, Construction d’un temple en ruine \u00e0 la d\u00e9esse de Vanad\u00e9<\/em> (Paris, galerie Le Bateau Lavoir \u00e9diteur, 1975) includes texts by Alain Robbe-Grillet, one of the creators of the Nouveau Roman, in conjunction with eleven etchings by Delvaux, including one in the frontispiece. <\/p>\n <\/p>\nDELVAUX AND PRINTMAKING<\/h2>\n