E.L.T. Mesens

E.L.T. Mesens , born in the old working of Saint-Gery with Brussels the November 27th 1903 and died in Brussels the May 13rd 1971, is one of the founders of the surrealist movement in Belgium.

Biography

His/her mother originating in Lille and his/her father, general storekeeper then wholesale grocer, of the the Brabant, E.L.T. (Edouard-Leon-Theodore) Mesens learns how very young person to play of the piano. It decides into 1919 to be devoted to the music and enters to the Academy of Brussels where it studies the harmony, the counterpoint and the orchestration. He then writes a score of small partitions of songs accompanied with the piano. Having met its work, it becomes acquainted with Erik Satie, of passage to Brussels, to which it returns visit to Paris. Satie thus takes it along to the first exposure of Man Ray to Paris and in the workshop of Brancusi. Mesens binds then with Man Ray (and Kiki) like with Marcel Duchamp. At the same time it meets in 1920 the painter Rene Magritte and the poet Pierre Bourgeois. At that time, according to Louis Scutenaire, " it is Edouard - and no one other which him - which shows in Rene Magritte the reproduction of a fabric of Chirico, the song of love , a work which filled with enthusiasm the young painter so much so that it is necessary to see there the detonator of the explosion magritienne" ( My friend Mesens , p. 31).

After a first concert in Brussels in 1922, Mesens, allured by the movement Hobby-horse, meets in Paris Philippe Soupault (in 1922), Aragon then Breton (about 1925), Eluard, Francis Picabia, collaborating in October 1924 with Magritte in its review " 391" , but also Hemingway (in 1923). It realizes in the 1924 its first joinings and photomontages, gives up the music, approaches poetry. With Magritte it projects to launch in October 1924 " Période" , run as of before its birth by a leaflet launched by Paul Nougé, then the review Œsophage founds (a number in March 1925, with the collaboration of Hans Arp, max Ernst, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Picabia, Kurt Schwitters and Tristan Tzara), then publishes the review Marie , " semi-monthly newspaper for beautiful the jeunesse" (three issues of March in July 1926 followed by a fourth in 1927, " Good-bye with Marie" , which marks their alliance with Paul Nougé, Camille Goemans, the musicians André Souris and Horeman).

Mesens consequently occupies an essential place in the Belgian surrealist group thus formed, at Nougé, Goemans, Magritte, Marc Eemans, Marcel Lecomte, Souris and Scutenaire. It publishes in 1926 Garage , music which it composed in 1921 on a poem of Philippe Soupault (cover of Man Ray), and pronounces a conference on the music. It directs in 1927 the gallery " Époque" , exposes some of the most important works of the surrealist painters, of Magritte, of which it presents in 1928 twenty-three works, of max Ernst and Joan Miro. It also presents its photographs to it, with those in particular of Atget, Moholy-Nagy, Kertesz, Man Ray. Between 1928 and 1930 several of its poems appear in " Distances" , " Variétés" of P.G. Van Hecke, with the development of which it takes part, and in " Surrealism in 1929".

In 1931 Mesens directs the Mesens gallery, is employed with Like of the Art schools of Brussels, and in 1933 founds the Editions Nicolas Flamel which publish Femme supplements , illustrated by Magritte, a homage of the surrealist ones, whose Breton, Char, Éluard, Maurice Henry, Péret, Dali, Tanguy, max Ernst, Brauner, Magritte, Hans Arp, Giacometti, with the young parricide Violette Nozières , deaf Alphabet plugs , with a foreword of Eluard, as well as the number three of the " International bulletin of Surréalisme". Secretary with the Palate of the Art schools of Brussels Mesens organizes in May 1934 there, with the assistance of Breton and Eluard, the exposure Minotaure . At the same time he is the editor association of the review Documents 34 . With Louvière it organizes in October 1935 the second international exhibition of surrealism, pronounces a conference there and, with Irene Hamoir, made readings of the surrealist texts. It is one of the signatories of the leaflet " The knife in the plaie" published in the " International bulletin of Surréalisme" who joins together for the first time the surrealist group of Brussels and that of the Hainaut (Achille Chavée, Dumont, Simon, Lefrancq, Van de Spiegele). Mesens in June 1936 organizes with London, with Breton, a new international exhibition of surrealism, while the surrealist group of Brussels is dislocated, a leaflet of which he is the instigator with Nougé excluding Souris to have as a leader directed a mass.

After having prepared with the Palate of the Art schools of Brussels an exposure of Magritte, Man Ray and Yves Tanguy, Mesens is established in 1938 in London. It directs the " there; London Gallery" where it presents works of surrealist and creates the review " London Bulletin" who appears of 1938 to 1940 (twenty numbers), contributing to the diffusion of Surrealism in the Anglo-Saxon world. In 1941 Mesens collaborates in the emissions of war of BBC. It is there in particular the author of the famous formula: " Radio-Paris lies, Radio-Paris lies, Radio-Paris is allemand". It publishes in 1944 with the " London Gallery Editions" Third Face, poems of war, follow-up of Spare parts , a collective work under the title " Message from Nowhere" and, in collaboration with Jacques B. Brunius, Idolatry and Confusion , lampoon against the chauvinism of the literature of war. With Penrose it translates " Poetry and truth 1942" of Eluard.

From 1952 Mesens joins again with the Collage S, gathering the most strange materials. Several exposures are organized by it, in 1958 in Paris, 1959 with the Palate of the Art schools of Brussels, in 1963 with the Casino of Knokke (125 joinings and objects), in 1970 in Turin, 1971 in Brussels. He writes several texts and forewords in parallel, in particular for exposures of max Ernst to Knokke in 1953, of Magritte in 1961.

E.L.T. Mesens dies in Brussels in 1971.

A commemorative plaque was placed Rue from the Large Island in Brussels on the house of the father of E.L.T. Mesens (where the inscriptions " droguerie" there are still), this plate initiated by Patrick Lowie was inaugurated by Freddy Thielemans and Charles Picqué in 1991

Judgment

" The writing, for Mesens, is not an esthetics but before a a whole weapon; such an amount of better if it is beautiful: a Malayan kriss, a Florentin dagger worthy of the museums as well as kill the navaja manufactured with blows of hammer by a poor Andalusian blacksmith. Its texts want to be effective, clean to influence the reader and consequently the world, a world always taken with partie"

Louis Scutenaire, My friend Mesens , p. 55.

Selective bibliography

Works of Mesens

Dance for a piano , with a portrait by P. - L. Flouquet, Fernand Lauweryns, Brussels, 1920.
Garage, for voice and piano , poem of Philippe Soupault, cover of Man Ray, Music, Brussels, 1926.
Femme supplements , triptych on a drawing of Magritte, Editions Nicolas Flamel, Brussels, 1933.
deaf Alphabet plugs , foreword and note of Paul Eluard, Editions Nicolas Flamel, Brussels, 1933.
Third face, poems of war, follow-up of Spare parts , illustrated by the author, London Gallery Editions, London, 1944.
Poems 1923-1958 , ten drawings of Magritte, the Waste ground, Paris, 1959.
Me, I am musician! , Didier Devillez editor, Brussels, 1997.

On Mesens

Andre Souris, Paul Nougé and his accomplices in " Talks on the surréalisme" , under the direction of Ferdinand Alquié, Sheep, Paris it the Hague, 1968.
E.L.T. Mesens , texts of André Breton, Paul Eluard, George Melly, Roy Edwards, P.G. Vaan Hecke, gallery Isy Brachot, Brussels, 1971.
Louis Scutenaire, My friend Mesens , Canon, Brussels, 1972.
Chritstian Bussy, Anthology of surrealism in Belgium , Paris, Gallimard, 1972.
Suzanne Otlet-Moutoy, stages of the artistic activity at E.L.T. Mesens and the spirit of joining like result of a thought , in " Bulletin of the royal Museums of Beautiful-Arts" , Brussels, 1973.
Rene Magritte and surrealism in Belgium , Royal Museums of the Art schools of Belgium, Brussels, 1982.
E.L.T. Mesens in particular a maintenance with Georges Melly with E.L.T. Mesens, translated of English, and a maintenance with Gerard Preszow with Irene Hamoir and Louis Scutenaire, " Art in marge" , bulletin n° 4, Brussels, December 1986 (100 p.).
surrealism in Belgium, I , texts of Louis Scutenaire, Irine Hamoir, Andre Blavier, Gallery Isy Brachot, Paris, 1986.
Marcel Mariën, the surrealist activity in Belgium (1924-1950) , Brussels, Lebeer-Hossmann, 1979.
the surrealist movement in Brussels and in Wallonia (1924-1947) , Paris, Arts center Wallonia Brussels, 1988.
Irene, Scut, Magritte & C° , Brussels, Museum Royal of the Art schools of Belgium, 1996.

Mesens appears under the figure of the " Mesens" general; in the dangerous Days the night black , account of Scutenaire writes in 1932 (Brewed, Brussels, 1972) and under the name of " Edouard Massens" in Boulevard Jacqmain of Irene Hamoir (Brussels, Editions of the Artists, 1953; Brussels, Didier Devillez Editor, 1996).

Internal bond

Surrealism in Belgium

External bond

Mesens with the royal Museums of the Art schools of Belgium

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