​VICTOR  SERVRANCKX
Major avant-garde & surrealist artist

VICTOR  SERVRANCKX  (Diegem 1897 - Vilvoorde 1965)
Belgian avant-garde artist, colleague and friend of René Magritte, Fernand Léger, Marcel Duchamp, Filippo Marinetti, Van Doesburg, Moholy-Nagy etc.. 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..

June 1922 : René Magritte, E.L.T. Mesens, Servranckx, Pierre-Louis Flouquet, Pierre Bourgeois
​Georgette Berger-Magritte, Pierre Broodcoorens, Henriette Flouquet

Servranckx was highly appreciated by many great contemporaries

"Opus 1" 1921, bronze, 30 x 40 x 30 cm
Collection of MUZEE, Ostend
"Expression de plénitude dans la tendresse. Compénétration d'espace négatif dans le temps, quatrième dimension.
​Compénétration d'espace et de durée. Totalisation d'espace-durée." - Victor Servranckx

"Opus 1" 1921, onyx marble, 41 x 37 x 37 cm
​Signed Servranckx and dated 1921 on the base at the left. Unique piece.
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Available. ​Contact us for more information
​Call 02 539.23.09 or mail group2gallerybrussels@gmail.com 

"Blue maternity" 1921, watercolour on cardboard, 41 x 24,5 cm
Exhibited at the Ixelles Museum in 1965, cat. no 34
​Available, call 02 539.23.09 or mail group2gallerybrussels@gmail.com

Composition 1922, Gouache (Sold)
​"Le premier qui pratiqua l'art abstrait en Belgique fut Servranckx"   Michel Seuphor

Invited by Marcel Duchamp, Servranckx participated in the "International Exhibition of Modern Art", organized in 1926-27 by "Société Anonyme" at the Brooklyn museum in New York.  "Société Anonyme" had been created by american artist & mecenas Katherine Dreier and by Marcel Duchamp. Later Miss Dreier bequeathed her collection of modern art to the Yale University Art Gallery.

Cover of the famous Berlin magazine "Der Sturm" edited by Herwarth Walden, 1928
The painting on the cover belongs to the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris

"Opus 9  1924", Oil on canvas, 70,5 x 58 cm
​Sold at auction in december 2022 for 312.500 Euro premium included.

"Cosmic vision" 1927, pencil on paper, 21,6 x 29,5 cm, collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York
​Michel Seuphor wrote that Servranckx was a visionary artist and cosmic poet painting his metaphysical obsessions.
​Click here to view available drawings by the artist

"Composition 1927", gouache, 55,5 x 39,5 cm
Exhibited at Musée d'Ixelles, 1965, cat. no 108
​Available

 "Opus 10   1928 - Clouded marble-marbled clouds" Oil on canvas, 46 x 37 cm
In 1928 Herwarth Walden exhibited Servranckx at Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin
​Exhibited at Ixelles Museum Brussels in 1965, cat. no 114
​SOLD

"Opus 2  1927, - The water realm", Oil on panel
​Collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp

Solo exhibition at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, 1929

"Opus 20  1931 - Life starts mysteriously" , Oil on canvas  70 x 58 cm
The artist's thumbprints appear in the circle at the upper right
Servranckx, who was fascinated by scientific discoveries, makes us look at the origins of life through a microscope.
Exhibitions : Budapest, Prague, Den Haag 1936 (Les artistes musicalistes), the Corcoran Gallery of Art Museum, Washington D.C., 1963
Ixelles Museum 1965, cat. no 126, Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, 1989, full page illustration in the catalogue.
In 1931 Servranckx exhibited together with Kandinsky, Baumeister & Schwitters at Galerie "Das Neue Frankfürt".
Available, call 02 539.23.09 or mail group2gallerybrussels@gmail.com

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
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Mrs Anne Adriaens-Pannier opening the Servranckx exhibition at Group 2 Gallery in 2019.

"Opus 9  1927", Oil on canvas 130 x 205 cm
With reference to Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, this major work could be called "1927 a Space Odyssey"
​Sold for hammer price 220.000 Euro at Lempertz, 2017

 ​"Opus 7  1930",  Oil and wood on panel (rare mixed media - collage)  70 x 90 cm
Exhibited at Ixelles Museum, 1965, cat. no 118, illustration in the catalogue.
Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, 1989, illustration in the catalogue.
The experienced viewer will discover affinities with the work of Max Ernst
​Available, call 02 539.23.09 or mail group2gallerybrussels@gmail.com

"Opus 2   1933 - Portrait of Mrs Ch. B.", ​Oil on canvas, 58 x 45 cm
The cloudy background upper left is in perfect harmony with the ladies' haircut
​Available

"Opus 12  1941 - Voluptuous mating of 2 snails - Accouplement vcluptueux de 2 escargots", Oil on canvas, 33 x 41 cm
​Exhibited at Ixelles Museum in 1965, cat. no 146
​SOLD

"Opus 14   1941 - Wheat threshing machine", Oil on panel, 23 x 28 cm
Exhibited at the Palais des Beaux-Arts Brussels, 1947
​and at the Ixelles museum in 1965, cat. no 147
​SOLD

"Wheat - Le blé coupé" 1945, Oil on cardboard
Exhibited at Palais des Beaux-Arts Brussels, 1947
​Private collection

"The passionate tree - l'arbre passionné" 1945, Oil on cardboard, 35 x 33 cm
A surrealist work featuring interesting details for the attentive viewer
Available, call 02 539.23.09 or mail group2gallerybrussels@gmail.com

"The Eiger, Mönch & Jungfrau mountain range" (Interlaken, Switzerland) 1948
​Oil on panel, 34 x 41 cm, Private collection
Painted by the artist on his way to the Venice Biennial in 1948

Catalogue of Servranckx exhibition at Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, 1947.
​Preface by the famous parisian art dealer Léonce Rosenberg :
"Nous avons été heureux de retrouver chez Servranckx les qualités que nous avons toujours constatées dans son art et qui peuvent se formuler ainsi : originalité, noblesse, style et conscience"

Léonce Rosenberg admiring "Opus 47  1923 - Exaltation of the machine" at Galerie Apollo in Brussels, 1946.
Collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels.
At his right is "Opus 1945  1923 - The couple", collection of the Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna

"The Pelican", 1947, a rare Pastel on fabric, 43 x 31 cm
​Exhibited at Ixelles museum, 1965
​Available

"Opus 20  - Purple oval" 1949, Oil on canvas, 41 x 33 cm
​Exhibited at Ixelles Museum, 1965
​Available

"Opus 5  1950 - Shock - Choc", Oil on canvas, 40 x 32 cm
Exhibited at the Ixelles museum in 1965, cat. no 191
​Available

"Opus 5  1952 - The magic of dawn and dusk - Magie d'aube et de crépuscule", Oil on canvas, 146 x 92 cm
​​Exhibited at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels in 1989
​Available

"Opus 2 - 1963", Oil on canvas, 204 x 61 cm
One of the artist's last works, a synthesis of his long career
​Available

The artist and art critic Maurits Bilcke at the opening of his last solo exhibition, Ixelles museum, 1965.
"The water realm" 1927, collection Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

View of the Servranckx exhibition at Group 2 Gallery in 2019

Click here to view available drawings

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, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy 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 "International exhibition of decorative arts" 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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