Posts in Category: Belgian
Fernand Khnopff
Fernand Khnopff, September 12, 1858 – November 12, 1921, was a Belgian painter, draftsman, printmaker, photographer, sculptor, and writer associated with Symbolism. Born in Grembergen, he spent part of his childhood in Bruges before his family moved to Brussels. He began legal studies at the Université libre de Bruxelles and entered the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1876; he also worked in Paris from 1879 to 1880.
Khnopff was a founding member of Les XX in 1883 and exhibited with the group. He met Joséphin Péladan in 1885 and later exhibited with the Salon de la Rose+Croix. From 1892 until 1914, he wrote the Brussels correspondence for *The Studio*; in the following decade, he designed costumes and sets for productions at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels.
His works are held by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Groeningemuseum, the Neue Pinakothek, the Musée d'Orsay, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, and other public collections.
William Degouve de Nuncques
William Degouve de Nuncques, February 28, 1867–March 1, 1935, was a Belgian painter born in Monthermé, France. His family settled in Brussels in 1874. After briefly attending the art academy in Ixelles, he developed largely through independent study. Jan Toorop and Henry de Groux were important early associates, and he shared a studio with de Groux.
He exhibited as a guest at the final Les XX exhibition in 1893 and subsequently at La Libre Esthétique. In 1894 he married the painter Juliette Massin, whose sister was married to Émile Verhaeren. His work included Symbolist nocturnes in oil and pastel, Mediterranean landscapes painted during his stay in Mallorca from 1899 to 1902, and Belgian winter landscapes.
After living in the Netherlands during the First World War, he returned to Belgium in 1919. Following Massin’s death that year, he stopped painting for several years. He later settled in Stavelot, where he died. His works are held by the Kröller-Müller Museum, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Musée d’Orsay, and Centraal Museum.
Théo van Rysselberghe
Théo van Rysselberghe, November 23, 1862–December 13, 1926, was a Belgian painter, printmaker, and designer associated with Neo-Impressionism. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent and, from 1879, at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels under Jean-François Portaels.
In 1883 van Rysselberghe helped found Les XX, the Brussels avant-garde artists’ society, and became one of its most active members. After seeing Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte in Paris in 1886, he adopted Divisionist methods and helped introduce Neo-Impressionism to Belgium; he also worked closely with Octave Maus and maintained associations with Paul Signac, Émile Verhaeren, Henry van de Velde, and other figures in Belgian and French modernism.
His work is held by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Museum of Fine Arts Ghent, Musée d’Orsay, Kröller-Müller Museum, National Gallery, Museo Nacional del Prado, and National Gallery of Art, among other public collections.
