VICTOR  SERVRANCKX  1897 - 1965
Belgian avant-garde artist, colleague and friend of René Magritte and Fernand Léger
Servranckx was undoubtedly one of the major Belgian artists of the XXth century whose works feature in the permanent collections of MOMA New York, Yale University, Centre Pompidou Paris, Grenoble, Thyssen-Bornemisza Madrid, Lisbon, Ludwig museum Vienna, Lehmbruck museum Duisburg, Mönchengladbach, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, Antwerp etc..

Abstract Composition 1922, Gouache 
​SOLD

 Opus 10   1928  "Clouded marble-marbled clouds" Oil on canvas
In 1928 Herwarth Walden exhibited Servranckx at Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin
​Exhibited at Ixelles Museum Brussels in 1965

Opus 20  1931 "Life starts mysteriously" Oil on canvas  70 x 58 cm
Exhibitions : Budapest, 1936 (Les artistes musicalistes), the Corcoran Gallery of Art Museum, Washington D.C., 1963
Ixelles Museum 1965, Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, 1989, full page illustration in the catalogue.
Servranckx was fascinated by scientific discoveries

Exhibition in Budapest 1936
​"Life starts mysteriously" is below right

In 2019 Group 2 Gallery organized a one-man show of the artist under the patronage of Mrs Anne Adriaens-Pannier,
Honorary curator of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium
DISCOVER THE SHOW ON RING TV
READ PRESS ARTICLE

 ​Opus 7  1930  Oil and wood on panel (rare mixed media - collage)  70 x 90 cm
Exhibited at Ixelles Museum, 1965, Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, 1989

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Opus 2   1933 "Portrait of Mrs Ch. B.", ​Oil on canvas

Opus 12  1941 "Voluptuous mating of 2 snails", Oil on canvas
​Exhibited at Ixelles Museum in 1965

Opus 14   1941 "wheat threshing machine" Oil on panel
​SOLD

Catalogue of Servranckx exhibition at Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, 1947.
​Preface by the famous art dealer Léonce Rosenberg

Opus 20 "Purple oval" 1949  Oil on canvas
​Exhibited at Ixelles Museum, 1965

Opus 5  1952  "The magic of dawn and dusk" Oil on canvas
​Exhibited at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium in 1989

Magritte, Mesens, Servranckx, Flouquet, P. Bourgeois, Mrs Magritte, P. Broodcorens, Mrs Flouquet

M. Bilcke, Mrs Gailliard, Servranckx, J.J. Gailliard

Servranckx, Jean-Jacques Gailliard

Victor Servranckx, born in 1897 in Diegem near Brussels made his first abstract work, a gouache/collage, in 1915. From 1913 to 1917 he studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Brussels where he had Constant Montald and Adolphe Crespin as Professors and a.o. René Magritte and Flouquet as fellow students. In 1917 several of his non-figurative works were exhibited at Galerie Georges Giroux in Brussels. Artist Michel Seuphor, author of "Abstract art in Flanders", wrote that this was the very first exhibition of abstract art in Belgium. Servranckx was in touch with international masters such as Fernand Léger, Marcel Duchamp and the italian futurist Filippo Marinetti. After an important solo exhition in 1924 at Galerie Royale in Brussels, the artist was invited by Marcel Duchamp to participate at the International exhibition of Modern Art organized by the New York gallery "Société Anonyme" in 1927. As a member of the Avant-Garde movement in Brussels, Servranckx wrote articles for the magazine "7 Arts". In 1922 he wrote with René Magritte the manifesto "L’art pur. Défense de l’esthétique". Servranckx gave his works neutral titles (Opus, followed by a serial number), which was in the spirit of the idea of ‘collective art’. In 1925, Servranckx momentarily ceased painting and devoted himself to architecture and design in his studio "Cubist Home". With architect Huib Hoste he designed an office space for the "Exposition Internationale des arts décoratifs" in Paris. When he resumed painting a year later, he distanced himself from the constructivist style, using a very diverse mixture of styles in his oeuvre. His work became "abstract and cosmic surrealist" whereby organic elements are combined with geometrical forms. In visionary paintings with biomorphic figures, Servranckx experimented with new techniques and materials. However, the design element remained part of his visual means of expression. After WWII, he returned to a formal abstraction and actively cooperated with a new generation of abstract artists such as Jo Delahaut and Paul Van Hoeydonck. Servranckx participated at the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958. 

 

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