Delvaux, Paul

▪ 1995

      Belgian painter (b. Sept. 23, 1897, Antheit, Liège, Belgium—d. July 20, 1994, Veurne, Belgium), in his mature works visually conveyed a dreamlike state, often juxtaposing nude, doe-eyed women with skeletons and other incongruous images in settings of richly detailed classical architecture. Delvaux studied architecture and painting at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. As a young artist, he experimented with Expressionism and Impressionism. In the early 1930s, however, he was introduced to the Surrealist works of Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, E.L.T. Mesens, Max Ernst, and Giorgio de Chirico, whose use of imagery was especially influential. Although Delvaux rejected being labeled, he was well established within the Surrealist movement by 1936, when he exhibited his paintings in a joint show with Magritte. The first major retrospective of Delvaux's paintings was held in Brussels in 1944-45; soon after, he was the subject of a documentary art film. From 1950 to 1962 he was a professor of painting at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Art et d'Architecture in Brussels. In 1982 the Paul Delvaux Museum, devoted exclusively to his work, opened in Sint-Idesbald on the North Sea coast. Delvaux and his wife eventually retired to Veurne, an isolated Flemish village, to escape the glare of publicity. He continued to paint until his eyesight failed in the late 1980s.

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▪ Belgian painter

born September 23, 1897, Antheit, Liège, Belgium

died July 20, 1994, Veurne

      Belgian Surrealist (Surrealism) painter and printmaker whose canvases typically portray transfixed nudes and skeletons in mysterious settings.

      From 1920 to 1924 Delvaux studied architecture and painting at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. His early work was influenced by Post-Impressionism and Expressionism, but after discovering the work of Salvador Dalí (Dalí, Salvador), Giorgio de Chirico (de Chirico, Giorgio), and his fellow Belgian René Magritte (Magritte, René), Delvaux converted to a Surrealist style in the mid-1930s. He traveled through Italy before World War II, and the Classical architecture he encountered there developed into recurring motifs in his work. During that trip he was also greatly influenced by early 16th-century Italian Mannerist (Mannerism) painting, which took liberties with form and space.

      Like Magritte and Dalí, Delvaux's Surrealist approach entailed creating an illusionistic depiction of an illogical dream space. A representative Delvaux painting is The Echo (1943), in which three somnambulistic, doe-eyed nudes walk in tandem past empty Classical temples, as if walking through time. His oeuvre is notable for its unvarying use of the same style and set of motifs. He was a professor of painting in Brussels from 1950 to 1962, and in 1982 the Paul Delvaux Museum opened in Belgium.

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