Paul Delvaux | |
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![]() Paul Delvaux signing autographs (1972), Brussels, Belgium | |
Born | Antheit, Belgium | 23 September 1897
Died | 20 July 1994 Veurne, Belgium | (aged 96)
Nationality | Belgian |
Education | Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts |
Known for | Painting, Frescos |
Notable work | Sleeping Venus (1944) Hommage à Jules Verne (1971) |
Spouse(s) | Suzanne Purnal (m. 1937, div. 1948) Anne-Marie "Tam" de Maertelaere (m. 1952, d. 1989)[1] |
Paul Delvaux (French: [dɛlvo]; 23 September 1897 – 20 July 1994) was a Belgian painter noted for his dream-like scenes of women, classical architecture, trains and train stations, and skeletons, often in combination. He is often considered a surrealist,[2] although he only briefly identified with the Surrealist movement. He was influenced by the works of Giorgio de Chirico and René Magritte, but developed his own fantastical subjects and hyper-realistic styling, combining the detailed classical beauty of academic painting with the bizarre juxtapositions of surrealism.[3]
Throughout his long career, Delvaux explored "Nude and skeleton, the clothed and the unclothed, male and female, desire and horror, eroticism and death – Delvaux's major anxieties in fact, and the greater themes of his later work [...]".[4]