TAB Event - James Ensor Exhibition

James Ensor Exhibition

This event has ended.
At Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum
Media: Painting, Drawing, Prints

Together with his compatriots René Magritte and Paul Delvaux, James Ensor (Ostend, 1860-1949) is often considered as a key figure in the Belgian modern art scene.
Ensor is especially known for his surreal paintings of masks, but his starting point was realism. While he was still a young man, he earned a solid reputation among upcoming and established artists with his landscapes, still lifes and portraits, painted in a daring naturalistic style mixed with plein-airist elements.
Gradually, masks, skeletons and other oddities started appearing in Ensor's paintings. These grotesque fantasies were attempts to capture the true nature of man and are clearly reminiscent of Chinese and Japanese fine arts. Ensor also made religiously, historically and socially inspired paintings full of irony and shocking caricatures.
The exhibition in the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum is the first Ensor exhibition to be organized in Japan in 20 years. It features around 140 oil paintings, sketches and prints from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Antwerp, the Municipal Museum of Ostend and other collections, thereby giving a full overview of Ensor's oeuvre, and even revealing its lesser known aspects.

A series of lectures will be given during the event; please check the event's website below for more information (Japanese language only).
Painting: "Death and the Masks". 1897 City Museum of Modern Art Liège.
(c) SABAM, Bruxelles & SPDA, Tokyo, 2005