ENTRANCE HALL

Born in Boston, Massachusetts. At the age of 19, Turbeville travelled to New York with the hopes of becoming a dancer or an actress, but she met designer Claire McCardell and started collaborating with her. In 1963 she worked as a fashion editor for the first time at Harper’s Bazaar magazine. The artist began doing photography by chance but managed to transform it into avant-garde art; she switched from catwalks and advertising to art galleries. Known for her blurred technique, Turbeville created the surprisingBath House series(Vogue, 1975), where the models appear in bathing suits in a public toilet, blurred and languid. In 1978 the artist published in that same magazine the images titledWomen in the Woods, the result of a commission for Valentino, a fashion designer for whom she was advertised the spring-summer 2012 collection in Mexico. Brands such as Chanel, Oscar de la Renta, Ungaro, Yamamoto and Comme des Garçons requested her for their campaigns. In 2007 she travelled around Europe, taking snapshots of peculiar people and places.

Born in New Orleans (United States). Dureau graduated in Fine Arts from Louisiana State University in 1952 and then studied architecture at Tulane University. His career includedpainting, sculpture and photography, in which he was known for his original approach to the male nude. A representative of the gay aesthetic, many of his portraits, whom he photographed in the streets or in his studio in the French Quarter, were his lovers; many of them were rejected by society but became somehow heroic through a gaze which embraces tenderness and feeling. Inspired by Classical and Baroque styles, his work is compared to that of his friend Robert Mapplethorpe, who was influenced by his figures of dwarfs and amputees exhibited without complexes. In 2006 and 2011, there wasa retrospective of his work at the Southern Art Museum (Ogden) and, in 2009, at the Museum of New Orleans. In 2012 he exhibited in the Higher Pictures Gallery (New York); in 2013 a collection of his paintings, drawings and photographs were exhibited in the Arthur Roger Gallery (New Orleans). His best portraits are brought together in the book George Dureau: The Photographs, edited by Chris Boot and with text written by Philip Gefter. Many of his works are owned by the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

Belgian painter, poet and art critic born in Termonde (Belgium). Studying at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten (Brussels), he met Victor Servranckx, who taught him the principles of non-figurative art. At the age of 15, the artist joined the Belgian avant-garde group 7 Arts. His early revolutionary works include Constructivist assemblages and non-figurative paintings meticulously balanced in solemn and subtle harmonies of colour, prefiguring those of Mark Rothko. In 1925 Eemans began to move away from non-figurative art and became Belgium’s first Surrealist painter, before René Magritte. Exhibiting with Salvador Dalí, he also became friends with members of the Societé du Mystère, a Belgian Surrealist group. His paintings from this period are inspired by the spiritual qualities of the Pre-Raphaelites, the German Romantics, and the Symbolists. In 1939 he exhibited in the Indépendants at the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam). Since then, his works have been exhibited in many places, including the Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Ghent) and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York). As a poet and writer, the artist collaborated with the Surrealist magazine Distances, which was managed in Paris by Camille Goeman, who was the first to deal with Dalí’s work. Once at the heart of the ideological events of the Surrealist group, he decided to abandon it to develop his solo experiences, but remained friends with Camille Goemans, Magritte and E.L.T. Mesens. His work can be found in public collections such as those of the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (Brussels and Antwerp).

One of the main exponents of abstract art in Belgium, Baugniet was born in Liège and studied at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten (Brussels), alongside Paul Delvaux and René Magritte. He lived in Parisfrom 1921 to1922. Baugniet discovered constructivism through artists such as Frantisek Kupka and became a spokesperson for this movement in Belgium. Starting in 1923, he collaborated in the magazine 7 Arts, a bridge between Belgian art and the international avant-garde, gathered around the notion of “La plastique pure”. Baugnietwas also a designer of applied arts, heavily influencing the Bauhaus movement. From 1930 to 1972, he founded a decorating showroom and workshop in Brussels, Baugniet et Cie. He exhibited his furniture at the Monza and Milan triennials (1930, 1933, and 1935), as well as at the Exposition Universelle (Brussels, 1935) and Exposition internationale des Arts décoratifs et industriels modernes (Paris, 1937). Baugniet also created stage sets, costumes, and posters, especially for his wife, the dancer Marguerite Acarin (“Akarova”), and was an art critic. All of his aesthetic essays were compiled at the end of the 1980s in the volume Vers une synthèse esthétique et sociale. He participated in numerous exhibitions and his work is represented in major permanent public collections. In 2001 the Musée d’Art moderne et d’Art contemporain (Liège) dedicated a large retrospective exhibition to all his creative facets.

Born in Ludza (Latvia) into a humble Jewish family, Chashnik spent his childhood in Vitebsk, the emblematic city of Marc Chagall; in 1919 the artist wentto Moscow and joined the VKUTEMAs, but his attraction to Chagall’s work brought him back to Vitebsk. As a disciple of Malevich, director of the Vitebsk school, he made his art change radically; he would become one of his most faithful and talented followers. In 1919 Malevich founded UNOVIS (Affirmers of New Art) with a group of students, one of whom is Chasnik. In 1922, he graduated from Vitebsk and moved to Petrograd to join Kazimir Malevich and other UNOVIS members. The artist focused on applying suprematist principles to everyday life: fabrics, posters, or buildings, in addition to his porcelain designs at the Lomónosov Imperial Factory. He collaborated with INKHUK and the Institute of Decorative Arts, used a multitude of techniques, and showed inexhaustible inventiveness and an astonishing ability to put suprematist principles into practice in almost every art form, including easel painting. In 1981, an important exhibition of his work was held in Austin (Texas). His works are exposed at the MT Abraham Foundation (Paris-Geneva) and at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid), among others.

Born in Antwerp; He is the most famous Belgian pioneer of abstract painting and sculpture. He studied at the Académie royale des beaux-arts (Antwerp and Brussels). From 1914 to 1918 he lived in Holland; In 1917 he exhibited at the Cercle Hollando-Belge. Then he creates purely geometric abstract works; although their grid-like compositions may seem arbitrary, they are determined by mathematical relationships. Meet the Belgian futurist Schmalzigaug and Mondrian, Van der Leck and Van Doesburg. In 1924 he published his pamphlet L’Art et son avenir. In 1931 he exhibited at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Paris) and was elected vice president of the association of avant-garde artists Abstraction-Création. In 1936 he participated in the Cubism and Abstract Art exhibition at MoMA. He exhibited with Bill and Antoine Pevsner at the Kunsthaus (Zurich) in 1949. His 75th birthday was celebrated with a solo exhibition at the Suzanne Bollag gallery (Zurich); in 1962 a large retrospective was presented at the new Marlborough gallery (London); subsequently there have been many others. His work is represented in countless public collections: Art Institute (Chicago), Groeningemuseum (Bruges). Kroller-Müller (Otterlo), Center national d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou (Paris), Berardo collection (Lisbon), MoMA (New York), Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Ghent), Royal Musées royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique (Antwerp and Brussels), Solomon R. Guggenheim (New York) and Tate Modern (London).

French painter and sculptor with a post-cubist, abstract style. His main inspiration came from the School of Paris and Cubism. Paintings signed by G. Tesson or with the monogram G.T. have appeared on the market, especially in Holland, with a rigorous, professional design and geometric style. Some of the colourful ones show a post-cubist spirit and recall Fernand Léger, Jean Metzinger or Henri Hayden; others, abstract and very constructed, in shades of grey, ochre and brown, recall the austere style of Ben Nicholson.

Born in Cimarrones, today Carlos Rojas (Matanzas, Cuba). Sicre was the founder of the Cuban sculptural avant-garde; with Antonio Gattorno and painter Víctor Manuel, he introduced European style and initiated modern art in Cuba. After completing his initial training in the country, the artist obtained a scholarship and travelled to Madrid, Paris, and Italy. Sicre was a professor at the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes in San Alejandro. His most famous work was the sculpture of José Martí in Havana; it was installed in 1958. With other artists, he made the reliefs for the Senate and the House.

A painter and graphic designer born in Antwerp. In 1911 Van Dooren entered the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten (Antwerp), where he surprised with his daring use of colour. His first works, from 1914, are Impressionist landscapes en plein air. But he was more interested in form than content; at the Academy, he befriended Jozef Peeters and from 1916 to 1919, they found a shared passion for depicting futuristic art with paintings prefiguring the images of the film Metropolis by Fritz Lang (1927). They also developed a kind of Symbolist and Romantic style related to their worship of Wagner’s music. Influenced by Robert Delaunay, Van Dooren’s work became increasingly abstract. In 1918 the artist co-founded the Modern Art group with Jozef Peeters, with the participation of Jan Cockx, Jos Léonard and Karel Maes; they made contact with Der Sturm and organised three art congresses accompanied by exhibitions. Van Dooren used the linocut technique, which favours geometric abstraction. However, his art evolved towards visions of a futuristic utopia, often suggesting a worship of machines. His futuristic imagery prefigured many Spielberg films. He exhibited in Breda and Antwerp (1956 and 1963), and since the 1970s his work has been included in numerous exhibitions on the Belgian avant-garde, including Modernisme: L’art abstrait belge et l’Europe (Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent), 2013). His works can be seen in this museum and in Antwerp, among others.