As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Surrealism, Jacques Lacomblez (Brussels, 1934°) turns 90! He has now become a major figure in historical Surrealism, from his encounters with Magritte, Mesens, Lecomte, Nougé, and Colinet to André Breton in 1958. This self-taught painter discovered and became enamored with De Chirico, Ernst, and Kandinsky before joining the Surrealist group Phases in 1956. But he is also a poet, influenced by Novalis and Michaux, and a craft publisher who founded the journal Edda (five issues, from 1958 to 1964) before publishing Achille Chavée. He illustrated works by Guy Cabanel, Jorge Camacho, Edouard Jaguer, and Franklin Rosemont. His poetry has been published in the USA in Chicago, in Belgium by Quadri, in France by Le Grand Tamanoir, in the Netherlands by Brumes Blondes, in Switzerland by La Doctrine, and in Canada by Sonàmbula.

The Wittockiana will showcase the “paper” side of the artist: his editions, his illustrators, his limited-edition prints, but also his binding designs and his watercolors that sing of the alchemical marriage between ice floes and fire, mineral strata and fossilized shells submerged beneath glazes, both subterranean cathedrals and contemporary cabinets of curiosities.