Victor Servranckx - Opus 1 - 1928 (Der Strom in seinem Flussbett)

Victor Servranckx

Opus 1 - 1928 (Der Strom in seinem Flussbett)
1928

Oil on canvas 70 x 45 cm Signed and dated 'SERVRANCKX 1928' in grey lower right.

It is not only in his native land of Belgium that Victor Servranckx is considered a legendary pioneer of abstraction. In 1917 he was already exhibiting his work in Brussels at the Galerie Giroux; this was followed by a 1918 stay in Paris at “L'Effort Moderne”, where he met Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Theo van Doesburg, Fernand Léger and Marcel Duchamp. The highly individual concept behind his work is convincing as a multilayered artistic experiment in which geometric-planar constructions and seemingly surrealistic-cosmic, sometimes collage-like compositions form lines of development that partially progressed in parallel.
From 1927 he increasingly created new works sustained by an unmistakably Surrealist spirit. In these pieces - in contrast to the purist-fantastical machine compositions which had dominated the preceding years of his oeuvre - Servranckx distanced himself from the problem of two-dimensionality in favour of a painterly inquiry into structure and depth. These works' association with landscapes viewed from a great distance is no coincidence: Servranckx's paintings sometimes seem to evoke a gaze from a great height, from an aeroplane or even a satellite. The subtitle of this work in a vertical format explicitly supports this reading and, in doing so, particularly underscores the metaphysical components of our striking piece, which has been exhibited many times in museums.

Certificate

With a photo-certificate by Angelina Servranckx (the artist's wife), Kortenberg, dated 27 October 1986.

Provenance

Estate of the artist; Private collection, Switzerland

Exhibitions

Brussels 1929 (Palais des Beaux-Arts), Eröffnungsausstellung; Brussels 1947 (Palais des Beaux-Arts), Servranckx, cat. no. 46 with full-page illus. no. 15; Bruges 1958 (Concertgebouw), Servranckx. Pionier van de abstrakte Kunst, cat. no. 37; L'Acquila 1963 (Castello Cinquecentesco), Aspetti dell'arte contemporanea, cat no. 420 (exhibition label on stretcher); Brussels 1965 (Musée d'Ixelles/Museum van Elsene), Servranckx, cat. no. 109; Hasselt 1970 (Provinciaal Begijnhof), Retrospectieve Tentoonstelling Victor Servranckx, 1897-1965, cat. no. 58 (exhibition label on stretcher)