Edouard Mesens, a Belgian forefather of the surreal movement in London 1936

Abstract

The article presents the birth and the origins of English surrealism. Hardly studied from its beginnings, its incipient manifestations began with the exhibitions and manifestations organized in London by the Belgian gallerist and writer Édouard Mesens, acquiring afterwards, insular and specific connotations through the work of surrealist English and Welsh artists and writers in the interwar period. Roland Penrose, Eileen Agar, Paul Nash, David Gascoyne, Humphrey Jennings, among others, consider that Paris is the cradle of the highest and most revolutionary manifestations of art in all its forms in that period of tense peace. After an accidental encounter in Paris, Roland Penrose and Édouard Mesens decide to introduce the Surrealist movement in England in 1936. The personal relations of Édouard Mesens with André Breton, Paul Éluard and Roland Penrose appointed Mesens representative of the English surrealist movement as Director of the London Gallery and editor of the London Bulletin, the official publication of surrealism in London. Besides, through different exhibitions, Édouard Mesens introduces the work of René Magritte and Paul Delvaux in the capital. At the same time, Mesens will take active part in the creation and development of the English surrealist movement and in 1944, he signed, together with J-B Brunius, the manifest “Idolatry and Confusion”. In 1947 the first declaration of the Surrealist Group in England appeared together with the first publications among which we can mention Message from Nowere, Fulcrum, Free Unions Libres or Surrealist transformation. The present article develops the relationship of all these literary and artistic manifestations and explains the connections between Belgian and English surrealism. It also analyzes and presents the work of the main artists, writers, and ideologues of English Surrealism. This constitutes the main and original contribution of this research paper.