André Cluysenaar Enter a
feeling, not
a gallery.
Choose a mood and the room itself answers — the light cools or warms, the air changes pace, and only the works that carry that feeling step forward from the dark. Everything else recedes into shadow.
André Cluysenaar
A Life Between Brussels and London André Edmond Alfred Cluysenaar entered the world in Saint-Gilles, Brussels, on 31 May 1872, born into a lineage where art was an inheritance. As the son of the historical painter Alfred Cluysenaar, his early education was shaped by the heavy influence of his father’s hand and the formal training of François-Joseph Navez. His initial forays into the arts were not limited to the brush; in 1897, he briefl
y explored sculpture, exhibiting a work titled Saint Sebastian. However, the weight of the canvas eventually became his true calling. The trajectory of his life was irrevocably altered by the onset of the First World War. Following the German invasion of Belgium, Cluysenaar joined a large community of displaced Belgian artists fleeing to London. This period of exile transformed him from a painter of the Belgian elite into a figure inte…