art.wikisort.org - Artist

Édouard Léon Théodore Mesens (27 November 1903 – 13 May 1971) was a Belgian artist and writer associated with the Belgian Surrealist movement.

E. L. T. Mesens
Born	Édouard Léon Théodore Mesens (1903-11-27)27 November 1903 Brussels, Belgium
Died	13 May 1971(1971-05-13) (aged 67) Brussels, Belgium
Occupation	artist, writer
Known for	Belgian Surrealist movement

Biography

Mesens was born in Brussels, Belgium. He started his artistic career as a musician influenced by Erik Satie and an author of dadaist poems. He was a publisher of the books Œesophage and Mariewith his lifetime friend and soulmate René Magritte. His activity as one of the leaders of the surrealist movement in Belgium was eased by him being an owner of a gallery, where he organised the first surrealist exhibition in Belgium in 1934. He also went to co-organise the London International Surrealist Exhibition, which made him settle in London. There he became the director of the London Gallery (which he ran during the late 1930s and after the war with Roland Penrose) and the chief editor of the London Bulletin (1938–1940), which was one of the most important bulletins among the English-language Surrealist periodicals.[1]

Mesens died in 1971 following a "long, lingering, painful illness".[2] According to an obituary published by poet and historian Franklin Rosemont, Mesens committed "suicide by absinthe", drinking himself to death by wilfully disregarding doctors' orders to abstain from alcohol.[2]

Works

• Alphabet sourd aveugle - Flamel, Brussels - with preface and a note by Paul Éluard (1933)
• Troisième Front - London Gallery Editions (1944)
• Free Unions - Unions Libres - Directed by Simon Watson Taylor (1946)
• The Cubist Spirit in Its Time - London Gallery Editions - with Robert Melville (1947)
• Poèmes, 1923–1958 - Le Terrain Vague (1959)

References

Further reading

• George Melly: Don't Tell Sybil: An Intimate Memoir of E. L. T. Mesens (1997).

External links

• Tate Collection - Four works by ELT Mesens
• Inventory of the E. L. T. Mesens papers - at the Getty Research Institute

На других языках

---

[de] E. L. T. Mesens

Édouard Léon Théodore Mesens (* 27. November 1903 in Brüssel, Belgien; † 13. Mai 1971 ebenda)[1] war ein belgischer Kunsthändler und -kritiker, Musiker, Maler und Schriftsteller, der mit der surrealistischen Bewegung Belgiens verbunden war.

---

- [en] E. L. T. Mesens

---

[fr] E. L. T. Mesens

E. L. T. Mesens, né dans le vieux quartier de Saint-Géry à Bruxelles le 27 novembre 1903 et mort à Bruxelles le 13 mai 1971, est un pianiste compositeur-interprète, écrivain, poète et plasticien belge. Il est l'un des fondateurs du mouvement surréaliste en Belgique.

---

---