Posted at 5:00 p.m.
A founding member of the avant-garde artistic circle Les XX and became a baron in 1929, James Ensor was a Belgian painter, engraver and anarchist who lived most of his life in Ostend. This painting, The roofs of Ostend, donated by Montreal collectors Carolyne Barnwell and Pierre Bourgie, depicts a view of the city from his studio. It is one of Ensor’s most famous works, according to the MMFA, “as evidenced by its inclusion in major retrospectives dedicated to the artist. »
“The canvas shows the influence that the English painter William Turner had over him through its chromatic tumult and its effects of sea mist, indicates the museum in a press release. After having embraced impressionism, which was intended as a method of faithful reproduction of reality, the artist turned to symbolism, a perceptible evolution here in the way in which light transcends the subject. »
Hanging in the museum in its galleries of XlX European artand and XXand century since last September, the painting has been added to the four prints by Ensor already owned by the MMFA. “The acquisition of this masterful canvas by James Ensor, one of the most original and accomplished painters of his time, confirms the preeminent role of our institution in Canada in representing the great moments of global artistic creativity”, says Stéphane Aquin, Executive Director of the MMFA.