Léon Spilliaert

Exhibited by Van Herck - Eykelberg

Material Indian ink wash, brush, watercolour, coloured pencil on paper

Dimensions 99 × 73.5 cm

Status Vetted

About the Work

Lady with Pince-Nez (1907) is a large-scale iconic work by Léon Spilliaert. It depicts an unknown female sitter, confident in her gaze yet marked by solitude and mystery, distinguished by an aura of empowerment yet giving the impression of an endless waiting.

The dark palette is characteristic for the artist’s most fruitful period at the end of the first decade of the 20th century. Recurrent themes are nocturnal land- and seascapes and alien portraits of the artist himself and of women, often depicted from the back or in existential isolation. When making portraits Spilliaert’s oeuvre is united in its consistent fascination with the interior emotional landscape of people.

Dr. Anne Adriaens-Pannier - author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Léon Spilliaert - and Dr. Noémie Goldman write in the catalogue of the ‘Léon Spilliaert’ exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2020: “As a pendant to his own image, he created a female figure with piercing eyes. From this notion of womanhood—which seems to have undergone a psychological transformation since the first Symbolist representations—a silent apparition emerged, full of self-confidence and the desire for independence.”

The body and dress of the sitter are depicted as a formless mass spreading out on the seat and into the room. The dark mass nearly absorbs the complete image, only one side of the face, the brooch and one hand emerge as light points in the composition. The almost abstract treatment of the human form takes the spectator to an inner world of feelings and emotions linked to human existentialism. Through its size and subject ‘Lady with Pince-Nez’ is a unique work among Léon Spillaert’s most accomplished oeuvre.

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Literature

1981 Francine Claire Legrand, Léon Spilliaert, Lannoo, 1981, n°37, ill. p.188
1996 Xavier Tricot, Léon Spilliaert de jaren 1900–1915. Monografieën over Moderne Kunst, Brussels, Pandora/Snoeck-Ducaju en Zoon/Gemeentekrediet, ill. p.162
1996-1997 [exhibition catalogue] Ostend, Museum voor Moderne Kunst, From Ensor to Delvaux, ill. p. 167
1998-1999 [exhibition catalogue] Antwerp, Ronny van de Velde gallery, Léon Spilliaert, ill. p. 66
2003 [exhibition catalogue] Tokyo, Bridgestone Museum of Art, Himeji, City Museum of Art, Nagoya, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Léon Spilliaert, ill. p. 77
2006 Anne Adriaens-Pannier, Spilliaert. Le regard de l’âme, Ludion, Gand, p. 79, ill. 103, ill. p. 81
2006-2007 [exhibition catalogue] Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Leon Spilliaert: een vrije geest, ill. p. 57
2019 Anne Adriaens-Pannier, Léon Spilliaert. From the Depths of the Soul, Ludion, Brussels, 2019, p. 79, ill. 103, ill. p. 81
2020 [exhibition catalogue] London, Royal Academy of Arts, Léon Spilliaert, ill. p. 145
2020-2021 [exhibition catalogue] Paris, Musée d'Orsay, Léon Spilliaert, ill. p. 49
2023-2024 [exhibition catalogue] Neuss, Gewagte Visionen. George Minne und Léon Spilliaert. Vom Symbolismus bis Expressionismus, ill. p. 65