Edmond Vandercammen
1901-1980

Edmond Vandercammen was born Ohain, Belgium in 1901.

He studied at l’Acédemie de Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles,1921to1924.

Vandercammen was an important part of the Belgian Avant-Garde, his career as an artist lasted only about fifteen years.  In the late1930’s he abandoned painting to pursue his poetry. He was a member of l’Académie Royale de Langue et de Littérature Français
in 1952.

In the 1920’s Vandercammen exhibited in Paris with his friend Pierre-Louis Flouquet at Galerie Povolovsky, Flouquet one of Belgium’s most well known modern artist.

In1927 he exhibited in Paris with Brancusi. In 1928 he exhibited at Galerie Henri in Paris. In 1929 he participated in an exhibition on the Rue Bonaparte in Paris, l’Exposition d’Art Abstrait. He collaborated in the Revue 7 Arts with other artists including Magritte. With Flouquet he founded the Journal des Poètsee in 1930, and in 1931 he had a one-man exhibition in Turin, Italy.

Though widely published as a poet, his accomplishments as an artist went unrecognized until the early 1980’s when a group of his paintings were acquired from his family.

In 1981 Galerie Bortier, in Brussels, organized a retrospective of Vandercammen’s paintings.  In 1987 Galerie De Jonckeere, also in Brussels, organized another exhibition.  Galerie Mostini in Paris, Papillon Gallery in Los Angeles, Primavera Gallery in New York, and Whitford and Huges in London began to exhibit works by Vandercammen.

Vandercammen’s paintings are typical of the Belgium school of modern painting, his early works are strongly Cubist and colorful, later his painting became more surreal and somber, but with Cubist elements. Being exposed to the colonial expositions, the influence of African tribal art is evident in many of Vandercammen’s paintings.

Vandercammen won the Prix Internationale de Poésie in 1977.