Henri-Jean Closon

Henri-Jean Closon is a painter born in 1988 and died in 1975, he is considered a pioneer of Belgian abstraction. He is particularly known for his very colorful compositions. After studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Liege, he practiced painting with a very colorful expressionist style. Afterwards he left to Paris, where he settled in 1921.

His turning towards abstraction in 1932 was the result of his pictorial research carried out besides Delaunay, Kupka, Herbin, Pevsner, Mondrian and Domela, as well as composer Maurice Ravel, who introduced him to the links between rhythm and painting: "Rhythm is, in every work, what gives life to it". A year later, Henri-Jean Closon settled in the countryside, in the south east of France, where he lived until 1954. During this period, he got rid of the influences of the capital, and developed his own artistic approach as well as his theory about color, transcoloration, inspired by musical counterpoints.

A member of the Abstraction Creation Association, he exhibits his works regularly at the "Salon des Réalités Nouvelles" since 1947. In 1961, the Museum of Grenoble devoted a retrospective exhibition to him, followed by another at the Museum of Fine Arts of Liege in 1969. In 2012, the Magritte Museum of Brussels paid tribute to the artist.