Les malheurs de la fille prodigue, 1978

Félix Labisse  

Félix Labisse, born March 9, 1905 in Marchiennes and died January 29, 1982 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, is a French surrealist painter, decorator, illustrator, engraver and lithographer. Félix Labisse's family is established in Douai. After World War I, she moved to Ostend in Belgium and founded a fishing company there. Félix Labisse will do his military service in Cambrai. He began his career as a painter in 1922 in Ostend under the protection of James Ensor. There he founded the "Modern Art Gallery", then the "Ostend Cinema Club" with Henri Storck. In 1932, he moved to Paris where he befriended Antonin Artaud, Jean-Louis Barrault and Robert Desnos, who wrote a text about him in which he praised his originality and his qualities as a painter. From 1935, he became friends with the surrealists Paul Delvaux, Max Ernst, André Masson, René Magritte, and also Jacques Prévert and Raymond Queneau. Mobilized in 1939 and back in Paris in 1940, he became one of the major artists of young French painting. From 1943, he devoted his activity to painting and theater sets. In 1947, he joined the group of "Revolutionary Surrealism", founded in Brussels by Christian Dotremont and in Paris, by Noël Arnaud. This group, which lasted only eighteen months, endeavored to "reconcile the needs of revolutionary action based on Marxism-Leninism and the freedom of research and specific expression of surrealism". The condemnation of this group by André Breton resulted in the first major split after World War II. In June 1951, he created the sets for the play “Le Diable et le Bon Dieu” by Jean-Paul Sartre, directed by Louis Jouvet. He divides his time between Paris and Knokke Le Zoute. In 1951, he moved to Neuilly-sur-Seine and continued to exhibit in Paris and in Europe. In 1966, he was elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1974, he was a member of the jury for the official selection of the Cannes film festival. He is buried in the cemetery of Douai.