SUZANNE VAN DAMME
From Ghent to Brussels, Paris, Florence, Venice and New York
From Ghent to Brussels, Paris, Florence, Venice and New York
Suzanne Van Damme (Ghent 1901–Brussels 1986), pictured in Paris in the early 1950s, was a Belgian painter who evolved from portraiture to surrealism and later to her signature ideogram compositions. Active in Paris, Florence and New York, and featured at the Venice Biennial, she forged a refined visual language that secured her place in Belgian modernism.
1920's - 1930's : James Ensor
"Portrait of James Ensor in his Ostend atelier" 1925, oil on panel, 90 x 120 cm
Suzanne painted this portrait at the age of 24.
Private collection
Suzanne painted this portrait at the age of 24.
Private collection
James Ensor "Peintres aux prises" 1938, oil painting
Private collection
Private collection
"Self portrait with red brush - Autoportrait au pinceau rouge" 1933, oil on panel 63 x 52 cm
Exhibitions :
Galerie Georges Giroux, Brussels, 1933; Kredietbank Grand-Place Brussels, 1988 "9 Femmes peintres";
Fine Arts museums of Antwerp & Arnhem, 1999, exhibition "A chacun sa grâce", illustration p. 365 of the book.
Illustration in "L'oeuvre de Suzanne Van Damme 1920-1945", Ed. La Boétie, Brussels, 1946 with a preface by Marcel Lecomte
Collection Group 2 Gallery
Exhibitions :
Galerie Georges Giroux, Brussels, 1933; Kredietbank Grand-Place Brussels, 1988 "9 Femmes peintres";
Fine Arts museums of Antwerp & Arnhem, 1999, exhibition "A chacun sa grâce", illustration p. 365 of the book.
Illustration in "L'oeuvre de Suzanne Van Damme 1920-1945", Ed. La Boétie, Brussels, 1946 with a preface by Marcel Lecomte
Collection Group 2 Gallery
Invitation cards exhibitions at Galerie Manteau, 1931 & Galerie Georges Giroux Brussels, 1933
Invitation card of an exhibition at Galerie Marcel Bernheim, Paris, 1935
"Still life with strawberries" 1937, oil on canvas, 31 x 48 cm
Available
Available
"View of San Gimignano", 1930's, oil on canvas, 65 x 80 cm
Available
Available
"San Gimignano", Tuscany
"View of the Port of Marseille" 1930's, gouache
Available
Available
"View of Beaulieu-sur-Mer from St-Jean Cap Ferrat" 1930's, gouache
Available
Available
1940's - 1950's : Surrealism
In 1947 André Breton invites Suzanne Van Damme and her husband Bruno Capacci
to participate in the International Surrealist exhibition at Galerie Maeght in Paris.
Monographies de l'art belge, by Roger Bodart, 1953
"Equilibre" 1946, oil on panel, 134 x 122 cm (Sold)
Exhibited at the Fine Arts museum of Antwerp & Arnhem, 1999,
Sotheby's New York, 2015 "Cherchez la femme"
Exhibited at the Fine Arts museum of Antwerp & Arnhem, 1999,
Sotheby's New York, 2015 "Cherchez la femme"
"Portrait of singer and actress Suzy Solidor (1900-1983)" 1946, oil on canvas, 220 x 109 cm
Collection of the Grimaldi Castle Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer, France
This collection features 43 portraits by Van Dongen, Picabia, Foujita, de Vlaminck, Cocteau, Marie Laurencin, Tamara de Lempicka etc.
Collection of the Grimaldi Castle Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer, France
This collection features 43 portraits by Van Dongen, Picabia, Foujita, de Vlaminck, Cocteau, Marie Laurencin, Tamara de Lempicka etc.
"Female whim - Caprice féminin" 1947, oil on panel, 54 x 44,5 cm
Collection Group 2 Gallery
Collection Group 2 Gallery
"La couleur assiégée" 1947, oil on panel, 225 x 123 cm
Exhibited and sold at Sotheby's New York exhibition "Cherchez la femme", 2015
Exhibited and sold at Sotheby's New York exhibition "Cherchez la femme", 2015
Suzanne Van Damme at Galerie Isy Brachot in Brussels, 1973
Entrance of the "Cherchez la femme" exhibition at Sotheby's New York, 2015
Works by Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carringron, Dorothea Tanning, Leonor Fini, Meret Oppenheim, Suzanne Van Damme a.o.
Works by Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carringron, Dorothea Tanning, Leonor Fini, Meret Oppenheim, Suzanne Van Damme a.o.
"Surrealist composition" ca 1947, oil on canvas mounted on panel, 88 x 110 cm
Exhibited in 2023 at the Montmartre museum in Paris ("Surréalisme au féminin")
Sold
Exhibited in 2023 at the Montmartre museum in Paris ("Surréalisme au féminin")
Sold
"Enigme de la civilisation" 1945, ink drawing, 70 x 50 cm
Monography by Paul Fierens, Editions La Boétie, 1950
"Le masque du refus" 1952, oil on canvas, 50 x 67 cm
A tribute to the carnival in Venice, the city where her husband, painter, ceramist and poet Bruno Capacci was born
Exhibited at Sotheby's New York "Cherchez la femme", 2015
Available, call 02 539.23.09 or mail [email protected]
A tribute to the carnival in Venice, the city where her husband, painter, ceramist and poet Bruno Capacci was born
Exhibited at Sotheby's New York "Cherchez la femme", 2015
Available, call 02 539.23.09 or mail [email protected]
"Les Ancestryllus" 1953, collage of oil paintings on panel, 90 x 75 cm
A surrealistic representation of eggs in the tradition of Hieronymus Bosch.
Sold
A surrealistic representation of eggs in the tradition of Hieronymus Bosch.
Sold
Chicago Tribune, 1959 : exhibition at Marshall Field Gallery
1960's : abstract sculptural compositions
Van Damme exhibits regularly in the USA and at the Venice Biennial
Invitation card of her solo exhibition at Thibaut Gallery, New York, 1961
"Présence singulière" 1960, oil & sand on canvas, 130 x 200 cm
Exhibited in New York, Thibaut Gallery, 1961
Available
Exhibited in New York, Thibaut Gallery, 1961
Available
Suzanne Van Damme in New York in 1965. Photo by Mrs Drill
"Liaisons salutaires" 1962, oil & sand on canvas, 114 x 168 cm
Exhibited in the belgian pavillion at the Venice Biennial, 1962
Available
Exhibited in the belgian pavillion at the Venice Biennial, 1962
Available
"Description démembrée" 1961, oil & sand on canvas, 161 x 129 cm (Sold)
Exhibited at the Venice Biennial 1962
Exhibited at the Venice Biennial 1962
1965 - 1980's : Ideograms
"Le gant précoce" ca 1965, watercolour, gouache & ink on japanese paper, 69,5 x 45 cm
Collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels
Exhibition : "Imagine", Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels 2024
Collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels
Exhibition : "Imagine", Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels 2024
"Oui, ton enfance veille sur toi" ("Yes, your childhood is watching over you")
ca 1965, watercolour, gouache & ink on japanese paper, 67 x 44 cm
Available
ca 1965, watercolour, gouache & ink on japanese paper, 67 x 44 cm
Available
"Cryptogram - Ideogram" 1960's, oil on panel, 125 x 125 cm
Available, call 02 539.23.09 or mail [email protected]
Available, call 02 539.23.09 or mail [email protected]
"Composition", Mixed media on panel, 123 x 120 cm
Available
Available
"Cinq mots posés" 1970's, oil on panel, 120 x 100 cm
Features a text by her husband Bruno Capacci
Sold
Features a text by her husband Bruno Capacci
Sold
"Les puits de l'inconscient" 1970's, oil on panel, 117 x 123 cm
Collection Group 2 Gallery
Collection Group 2 Gallery
"Le folklore du romanesque" 1970's, acrylic on canvas, 116 x 89 cm
Sold
Sold
"L' autre dimension" (texts by Bruno Capacci) 1970's, oil on canvas, 92 x 73 cm
Sold
Sold
"Les failles de l'inconnue" 1970's, oil on panel, 200 x 93,5 cm
Available
Available
"Ces mots si longs aux couleurs de pourpre" 1970's, oil on panel, 237 x 105 cm (Sold)
Monography by Group 2 Gallery at its opening exhibition, 1990
"The Venitian", ca 1980, oil on canvas, 125 x 125 cm
Venitian palaces at the Canal Grande
Exhibited at Galleria l'Antenna, Bergamo, 1981 & Charleroi Museum, 2024 (Belgian women artists)
Available
Venitian palaces at the Canal Grande
Exhibited at Galleria l'Antenna, Bergamo, 1981 & Charleroi Museum, 2024 (Belgian women artists)
Available
"Ecriture" 1975, mixed media on paper, 67 x 44 cm
Available
Available
Series of 7 abstract compositions, ink drawings, 97 x 71 cm
Available
Available
Suzanne Van Damme was born in Ghent in 1901. Disciple of James Ensor in her early years, she painted the great Master in his Ostend home in 1925 with "The Entry of Christ in Brussels", which now belongs to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles- in the background. In 1938 Ensor painted a canvas "Peintres aux Prises", featuring Suzanne Van Damme - pencil in hand - and himself seated and looking up at her. After several exhibitions in Brussels (Galerie Manteau in 1931 and Galerie Georges Giroux in 1933), Suzanne moved to Paris in the early 1930’s. Both Galerie de Paris (1934) and Galerie Bernheim (1935) exhibited her work. In "Le Dôme" in Montparnasse she met Italian painter, ceramist and poet Bruno Capacci (Venice 1906-Brussels 1996), whom she married. The couple became friends with french artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Jean Cocteau.
Van Damme worked closely with several surrealist poets such as Paul Colinet, Marcel Lecomte, Henry Bauchau e.a. Their poems were regularly dedicated to her, while her compositions turned into a mixture of literary and pictorial items. Her love for poetry together with her experiments in the graphic field, were bound to give birth to a new script, a kind of private alphabet full of signs and symbols, a mysterious blend of Japanese calligraphy and Egyptian hieroglyphs in mere black and white.
In 1947 the "pope of surrealism" André Breton invited Capacci and Van Damme to take part in the famous “Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme” at Galerie Maeght in Paris, together with famous contemporaries such as Arp, Bellmer, Brauner, Calder, Duchamp, Ernst, Giacometti, Gorky, Lam, Matta, Miro, Picabia, Man Ray, Tanguy, Tanning and many others.
When the couple moved to Florence in the 1950’s, Suzanne was very much impressed by the beauty of Tuscany, the colours of the earth, the sand, the pebbles, the marble… She started painting or rather "sculpting" abstract ondulating forms on canvas.
In the 1950’s and the 1960’s Suzanne Van Damme exhibited regularly in the USA : Chicago (Marshall Field Gallery 1959), New York (Thibault Gallery on Madison Avenue 1961), Los Angeles, Baltimore, Dallas (Calhoun Gallery 1961), Denver (Saks Gallery 1969) etc..
During her long career, Van Damme exhibited five times at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and she participated at the Venice Biennials in 1935, 1954 and 1962 and at the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1953.
Her last period is certainly the most personal and interesting one. A series of individual abstract and figurative little scenes are brought together on canvas or on panel, forming a large patchwork. Most of these cryptograms - ideograms are painted in black, brown and beige, shedding a veil of timeless beauty over the primitive signals and the mythological figures. Others look like stained glass panels in every possible shade of blue, purple, red or orange, glowing with an inner light full of mystery. It takes a great deal of talent to reach the ideal harmony, the ultimate balance, the perfect Ying-Yang every artist is dreaming of. Suzanne Van Damme definitely had that talent. She died in Brussels in 1986.
The opening exhibition of Group 2 Gallery in 1990 was a tribute to Suzanne Van Damme. In 1992 the gallery organized a second solo show "Suzanne Van Damme - from Realism to Surealism", followed by a confrontation of her work with that of her husband Bruno Capacci in 1996. In 2010 Group 2 Gallery celebrated its 20th anniversary with another solo exhibition of Suzanne Van Damme.
In 2015, 25 years after the opening show at Group 2 Gallery, several surrealist works of Van Damme were on view at Sotheby’s New York Gallery in the exhibition “Cherchez la femme”, together with surrealist works by other female artists such as Frida Kahlo, Leonor Fini, Meret Oppenheim, Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning, Dora Maar etc.
Works by Van Damme were exhibited at the Musée de Montmartre in Paris (2023), the Royal Museum for Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels (Exhibition Imagine in 2024), at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2024) and at the Hamburger Kunsthalle in 2025 (Exhibition "Rendezvous of Dreams : Surrealism and German Romanticism).
Van Damme worked closely with several surrealist poets such as Paul Colinet, Marcel Lecomte, Henry Bauchau e.a. Their poems were regularly dedicated to her, while her compositions turned into a mixture of literary and pictorial items. Her love for poetry together with her experiments in the graphic field, were bound to give birth to a new script, a kind of private alphabet full of signs and symbols, a mysterious blend of Japanese calligraphy and Egyptian hieroglyphs in mere black and white.
In 1947 the "pope of surrealism" André Breton invited Capacci and Van Damme to take part in the famous “Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme” at Galerie Maeght in Paris, together with famous contemporaries such as Arp, Bellmer, Brauner, Calder, Duchamp, Ernst, Giacometti, Gorky, Lam, Matta, Miro, Picabia, Man Ray, Tanguy, Tanning and many others.
When the couple moved to Florence in the 1950’s, Suzanne was very much impressed by the beauty of Tuscany, the colours of the earth, the sand, the pebbles, the marble… She started painting or rather "sculpting" abstract ondulating forms on canvas.
In the 1950’s and the 1960’s Suzanne Van Damme exhibited regularly in the USA : Chicago (Marshall Field Gallery 1959), New York (Thibault Gallery on Madison Avenue 1961), Los Angeles, Baltimore, Dallas (Calhoun Gallery 1961), Denver (Saks Gallery 1969) etc..
During her long career, Van Damme exhibited five times at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and she participated at the Venice Biennials in 1935, 1954 and 1962 and at the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1953.
Her last period is certainly the most personal and interesting one. A series of individual abstract and figurative little scenes are brought together on canvas or on panel, forming a large patchwork. Most of these cryptograms - ideograms are painted in black, brown and beige, shedding a veil of timeless beauty over the primitive signals and the mythological figures. Others look like stained glass panels in every possible shade of blue, purple, red or orange, glowing with an inner light full of mystery. It takes a great deal of talent to reach the ideal harmony, the ultimate balance, the perfect Ying-Yang every artist is dreaming of. Suzanne Van Damme definitely had that talent. She died in Brussels in 1986.
The opening exhibition of Group 2 Gallery in 1990 was a tribute to Suzanne Van Damme. In 1992 the gallery organized a second solo show "Suzanne Van Damme - from Realism to Surealism", followed by a confrontation of her work with that of her husband Bruno Capacci in 1996. In 2010 Group 2 Gallery celebrated its 20th anniversary with another solo exhibition of Suzanne Van Damme.
In 2015, 25 years after the opening show at Group 2 Gallery, several surrealist works of Van Damme were on view at Sotheby’s New York Gallery in the exhibition “Cherchez la femme”, together with surrealist works by other female artists such as Frida Kahlo, Leonor Fini, Meret Oppenheim, Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning, Dora Maar etc.
Works by Van Damme were exhibited at the Musée de Montmartre in Paris (2023), the Royal Museum for Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels (Exhibition Imagine in 2024), at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2024) and at the Hamburger Kunsthalle in 2025 (Exhibition "Rendezvous of Dreams : Surrealism and German Romanticism).
A Language of Signs and Symbols
Suzanne Van Damme developed a private lexicon of marks reading like musical notations. Short dashes, minute glyphs and clustered dots guide the eye in a measured cadence. Rather than describing the visible world, she constructs a field to be read, where silence, interval and echo carry their full meaning. Viewers follow the signs as one reads a poem: from staccato to pause, from tension to release. This positions her oeuvre within the history of 20th-century Belgian art and the poetic current of Belgian Surrealism.
The signs resist literal deciphering. They function as carriers of rhythm and memory, notes of an interior movement. Here the artist’s intimate script meets the universal ideogram, a visual language touching the origins of mark-making without becoming archaeology. For collectors of Belgian modern art, that tension convinces: the work remains personal and elusive yet speaks a shared, near-archaic vocabulary.
Within the context of Group 2 Gallery Brussels, this approach aligns with our focus on women artists and on practices that test the boundary between text and image. Van Damme’s “visual writing” ties the literary line of surrealism to later inquiries into semiotics and materiality. Each canvas becomes both a reading experience and a tactile event.
The signs resist literal deciphering. They function as carriers of rhythm and memory, notes of an interior movement. Here the artist’s intimate script meets the universal ideogram, a visual language touching the origins of mark-making without becoming archaeology. For collectors of Belgian modern art, that tension convinces: the work remains personal and elusive yet speaks a shared, near-archaic vocabulary.
Within the context of Group 2 Gallery Brussels, this approach aligns with our focus on women artists and on practices that test the boundary between text and image. Van Damme’s “visual writing” ties the literary line of surrealism to later inquiries into semiotics and materiality. Each canvas becomes both a reading experience and a tactile event.
Material as Expression
Material determines how meaning emerges. Van Damme prepares the ground with care so that pigment can sit at varied depths. Matte passages lie beside soft satin glows, producing a quiet relief that avoids spectacle yet offers rich reflection. Across these fields she lays economical, near-calligraphic gestures, precisely dosing pressure and speed. Paper and mixed media build a palimpsest in which earlier decisions remain as whispering strata.
She thinks as a painter and printer. Gouache, ink and tempera combine with transparent washes and opaque veils. Zones that breathe appear: pigment that sinks into the paper fiber next to strokes hovering on the surface. This controlled layering yields a restrained lyricism valued in Belgian modern painting and in collections focused on 20th-century works on paper.
The encounter is tactile before it is conceptual. Light travels across the skin of the work and reveals where the hand pressed, resumed, erased. The surface never closes; it invites return. One reads, rereads, and finds small shifts. Technique becomes a way to show silence. Material thought becomes visible.
She thinks as a painter and printer. Gouache, ink and tempera combine with transparent washes and opaque veils. Zones that breathe appear: pigment that sinks into the paper fiber next to strokes hovering on the surface. This controlled layering yields a restrained lyricism valued in Belgian modern painting and in collections focused on 20th-century works on paper.
The encounter is tactile before it is conceptual. Light travels across the skin of the work and reveals where the hand pressed, resumed, erased. The surface never closes; it invites return. One reads, rereads, and finds small shifts. Technique becomes a way to show silence. Material thought becomes visible.
Between Surrealism and Abstraction
Close ties to surrealist poets such as Paul Colinet, Marcel Lecomte and Henry Bauchau anchor Van Damme in a literary, introspective branch of surrealism. Yet she leaves dream-illustration early. Automatic writing serves not as an illustrative device but as a structural principle: signs organize the plane and open mental space. The vocabulary is not narrative but evocative, suggesting entries, pauses and echoes.
Years in Florence deepen this shift. Her palette opens to earth, pebble and marble tones; forms become undulating and almost sculptural. One could say she “sculpts” in paint, the canvas responding to light and gravity as stone would. This phase builds a bridge to European lyrical abstraction: the language becomes distilled while intensity remains. Mystery is not explained; it is refined.
That double position between Belgian Surrealism and Lyrical Abstraction makes her oeuvre resistant to single labels and therefore art-historically fertile. Within the curated strands Surrealism and Lyrical Abstractions at Group 2 Gallery, one sees how her work connects both domains. Imagination and structure, spontaneity and discipline reinforce each other.
Years in Florence deepen this shift. Her palette opens to earth, pebble and marble tones; forms become undulating and almost sculptural. One could say she “sculpts” in paint, the canvas responding to light and gravity as stone would. This phase builds a bridge to European lyrical abstraction: the language becomes distilled while intensity remains. Mystery is not explained; it is refined.
That double position between Belgian Surrealism and Lyrical Abstraction makes her oeuvre resistant to single labels and therefore art-historically fertile. Within the curated strands Surrealism and Lyrical Abstractions at Group 2 Gallery, one sees how her work connects both domains. Imagination and structure, spontaneity and discipline reinforce each other.
Legacy and Contemporary Relevance
International exhibitions and Biennials convey historical weight, yet the work’s urgency lies elsewhere: it reads as contemporary art. In an era absorbed by language, code and interface, these paintings show how image and script can touch without collapsing into one. The coded surfaces resonate with current interests in semiotics, visual poetry and the materiality of drawing.
As a modern Belgian woman artist with a self-authored alphabet, Van Damme demonstrates how thought becomes matter. Curators and scholars value the consistency of her formal decisions; collectors value rarity, refined facture and durable calm. Her work stands out convincingly in museum contexts and private collections, in Belgium and abroad.
Group 2 Gallery Brussels has sustained this relevance since its opening tribute in 1990. Through focused exhibitions, dialogues with peers and careful attention to provenance, documentation and condition, her work remains quintessential in discussions about 20th-century Belgian art. The gallery offers continuity: a place where Van Damme’s quiet script can be read anew by connoisseurs and first-time viewers alike.
As a modern Belgian woman artist with a self-authored alphabet, Van Damme demonstrates how thought becomes matter. Curators and scholars value the consistency of her formal decisions; collectors value rarity, refined facture and durable calm. Her work stands out convincingly in museum contexts and private collections, in Belgium and abroad.
Group 2 Gallery Brussels has sustained this relevance since its opening tribute in 1990. Through focused exhibitions, dialogues with peers and careful attention to provenance, documentation and condition, her work remains quintessential in discussions about 20th-century Belgian art. The gallery offers continuity: a place where Van Damme’s quiet script can be read anew by connoisseurs and first-time viewers alike.
