James Ensor

Belgian, 1860-1949. James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor was a Belgian painter and graphic artist who lived in Belgium his entire life. His avant-garde work comprised heavy application of paint using a palette knife to create eccentric compositions that condemned social and political upheavals of the times. His paintings, symbolically used masks as a tool to express the revelation of malicious human nature. Initially, his style was popularly trivialized and even in his home region, which made him shift to Brussels to find takers for his “radical” paintings. This depression was overcome by eventual success as ardent appreciation by critics, followed by his induction into the Royal Academy of Belgium and the reception of the Legion of Honor. James Ensor played a pivotal role in influencing Surrealism and became a forerunner of Expressionism.