Belgian painter, born on 22 September 1901 in Ghent, died on 11 January 1986 in Ixelles.
Life
Suzanne Van Damme trained at the academies of Ghent and Brussels, then at the independent studio L’Effort in Brussels. In Ostend she came under the influence of James Ensor, who became her mentor: she painted his portrait in 1925, and he painted hers in 1938. Her early work belongs to Post-Impressionist painting.
In the early 1930s she settled in Paris, where she met the Italian painter and poet Bruno Capacci, whom she married. She would then divide her life between Paris, the south of France, London and Florence.
In 1941 she came into contact with the Surrealists. André Breton photographed many of her first Surrealist canvases. In 1947 she took part in the International Surrealist Exhibition organised in Paris by Breton and Marcel Duchamp.
The work
Her paintings of the 1940s are in dialogue with Picasso, De Chirico, Kurt Seligmann and Toyen. Settled in Florence, she turned towards abstraction, then developed a personal language of ideograms composed of “mini-paintings” mingling abstract and figurative elements.
Exhibitions and collections
- Venice Biennale, 1935, 1954 and 1962; São Paulo Biennial, 1953.
- International Surrealist Exhibition, Paris, 1947.
- United States, 1950s and 1960s: Marshall Field Gallery, Chicago (1959); Thibault Gallery, New York (1961); Calhoun Gallery, Dallas (1961); Saks Gallery, Denver (1969).
- Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent (MSK): a large Surrealist oil entitled The Oppressor of Silence in the museum’s record, 156 x 122.5 cm, on deposit from the Flemish Community since 1949.