Life starts mysteriously 1930  Oil on canvas  70 x 58 cm
Exhibited in Budapest, 1936 (Les artistes musicalistes), at the Corcoran Gallery of Art Museum, Washington D.C., 1963
Ixelles Museum 1965, Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, 1989

TRIBUTE  TO
VICTOR  SERVRANCKX
​1897 - 1965
One of the first belgian abstract artists
​Paintings and drawings from 1913 to 1963

Under the patronage of Mrs Anne Adriaens-Pannier
Honorary curator of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium
and in memory of Mr Eric Pil​​
​
​  EXHIBITION
15 march - 4 may  2019
Open wednesday to saturday  2 - 6 PM or by appointment 02.539.23.09
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Group 2 Gallery is delighted to announce its tribute exhibition to Victor Servranckx, undoubtedly one of the major belgian artists of the XXth century whose works feature in the permanent collections of museums in the United States (MOMA New York, Yale University) and in Europe (Centre Pompidou Paris, Grenoble, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum Madrid, Ludwig Museum Vienna, Lehmbruck Museum Duisburg, Mönchengladbach-Abteiberg Museum, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent a.o.)

 ​Opus 7  1930  Oil and wood on panel 70 x 90 cm
Exhibited at Ixelles Museum, 1965, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Brussels, 1989

Woman 1947  drawing on paper

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, claimed having 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 a major 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 collaborated with a new generation of abstract artists such as Jo Delahaut and Paul Van Hoeydonck. Servranckx also participated at the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958. Servranckx is rightly considered as one of the most important belgian artists of the XXth century, whose works are found in the collection of important museums in the United States (MOMA New York, Yale University) and in Europe (Centre Pompidou in Paris, Vienna, Mönchengladbach, Duisburg, Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent etc..). Group 2 Gallery presents in this tribute show a fine selection of extremely rare and highly unusual works of the artist, which will delight every modern art enthusiast. 

 

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