Author Description

"In response to its closure for renovation, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) has embarked on a joint venture with the FeliXart Museum Drogenbos for the purpose of presenting to a broad audience an exhibition of exceptional and less frequently displayed artworks from the period 1917-1956. This publication offers insights into the lively arts scene during the interwar period, ranging from post-impressionism via abstraction and expressionism to the mixed forms characteristic of that time, with works by Jules Schmalzigaug, Marthe Donas, Oscar and Floris Jespers, Edmond Van Dooren, Jozef Peeters, Felix De Boeck, Jan Kiemeneij, Jos Leonard, Paul Joostens, Prosper De Troyer, Marcel-Louis Baugniet and Ossip Zadkine. In addition to two introductory essays, a sequential analysis of individual works maps out a reconstruction of this 'forgotten' period in Belgian art history. 1925 serves as the pivotal point in the pursuit of a purely visual language, after which the various developments that had resulted in abstract art began to surface in new mutated forms. It is within that context, supported by new research, that this selection from the KMSKA collection is reassessing the significance of this period."--Page 4 of cover.