Delvaux, Paul (1897–1994)

Belgian surrealist painter. He is renowned for his unearthly canvases portraying female nudes in settings of ruined, classical architecture. He was initially influenced by Dalí, de Chirico, and Magritte, but later developed his own unique style, reflecting a preoccupation with time, eroticism, and death. His nudes are typically somnambulant and frequently accompanied by stilled locomotives, skeletons, half-moons, and mirrors, as in Sleeping Venus 1944. Occasionally an elegantly clothed woman or man appears among Delvaux's nudes, but his characters rarely interact. Any erotic message is held in suspense.

Delvaux was born in Antheit-Hut, Belgium. He studied art at the Acadâmie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and for many years worked in a Neo-Impressionist style. Later, under the influence of fellow Belgians James Ensor and de Smet, he experimented with expressionism. It was not until the mid-1930s, encouraged by several close friends, that he turned wholeheartedly to surrealism, destroying most of his earlier works.

Surrealism allowed Delvaux to draw freely upon the haunting images of childhood and adolescence, changing little during the half century of his mature work. In the 1940s he introduced the skeleton to his work – an allusion to James Ensor and, ultimately, to the North European theme of Death and the Maiden. Its most dramatic appearance was as Christ in a Crucifixion 1952, a work condemned as blasphemous by Cardinal Roncalli (the future Pope John XXIII) when it appeared at the 1954 Venice Biennale.