History of Art: Paul Delvaux

Art of the 20th Century

Art Styles in 20th century Art Map

Paul Delvaux

Paul Delvaux

(b Antheit, nr Huy, 23 Sept 1897; d Veurne, 20 July 1994).

Belgian painter and printmaker. He was, with René Magritte, one of the major exponents of SURREALISM in Belgium. He began his training in 1920 at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, initially as an architect, but he soon changed to decorative painting, and he completed his studies in 1924. In his earliest works, such as Seascape (1923; Ostend, Mus. S. Kst.) and The Couple (1929; Brussels, Mus. A. Mod.), he was strongly influenced by the Flemish Expressionism of painters such as Constant Permeke and Gustav De Smet. In the mid-1930s, however, he turned decisively to Surrealism, not as an orthodox member of the movement but to a large extent under the influence of Giorgio De Chirico’s Pittura Metafisica, which he had first seen c. 1926. Among his first characteristic works in this vein are Pink Bows (1937) and Phases of the Moon (1939; New York, MOMA), in both of which he incorporated the somnambulant figures that were to become his trademark.