Theo Van Rysselberghe 1862-1926

Early Years

Théo van Rysselberghe was born in Ghent into a French-speaking bourgeois family. He studied art first in Ghent under Theo Canneel, and later in Brussels at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts with Jean-François Portaels, whose North African-themed paintings sparked a fashion for Orientalism in Belgium. Portaels’ work strongly influenced van Rysselberghe, who made three trips to Morocco between 1882 and 1888, spending about a year and a half there in total.

At just 18, he exhibited two portraits at the Salon of Ghent. His Self-portrait with pipe (1880) reflected the dark, realistic style of the time. However, his Child in a clearing (1880) showed early signs of impressionism, a direction he would continue to explore. In 1881, he first exhibited at the Salon in Brussels.

IMPORTANT WORKS BY VAN RYSSELBERGHE

First Trip to Morocco

In 1882, he travelled through Spain and Morocco with artists Frantz Charlet and Darío de Regoyos. He admired the old masters in Madrid's Prado Museum and met Constantin Meunier in Seville. That October, van Rysselberghe arrived in Tangier and spent four months painting local street scenes and people, producing works like Arabian street cobbler and Resting guard.

Back in Belgium, he showed around 30 works from his trip at the "Cercle Artistique et Littéraire" in Ghent. The exhibition was a success, especially pieces like The Kief Smokers, The Orange Seller, and The Strait (Setting Sun), Tangier. These works were later also shown in Brussels at the salon L'Essor, where he met writer and poet Emile Verhaeren.

In late 1883, he went to Haarlem to study the use of light in the works of Frans Hals and met American painter William Merritt Chase.

Les XX

On October 28, 1883, van Rysselberghe co-founded Les XX, a group of young progressive artists opposed to academic traditions. Led by art enthusiast Octave Maus, the group included major names like James Ensor, Félicien Rops, Fernand Khnopff, and later Rodin and Signac. Van Rysselberghe painted several portraits of Maus and his wife over the years.

Second Trip to Morocco

In November 1883, he returned to Tangier with Frantz Charlet and stayed for a year. He kept in touch with Octave Maus and suggested new artists for the Les XX exhibitions, including Chase and Meunier. In 1884, he toured Andalusia with John Singer Sargent and Ralph Curtis. His most ambitious work from this period, Arabian Phantasia, was inspired by Delacroix and showed his growing fascination with light. He returned to Belgium in October 1884 due to financial constraints.

In 1885, he exhibited Arabian Phantasia and other Moroccan works at the second Les XX show.

Impressionism

His portraits around 1884–1886 used dark tones contrasted with lighter colours, such as Jeanne and Marguerite Schlobach and Marguerite Van Mons. After seeing works by Monet and Renoir at Les XX in 1886, he began experimenting with impressionism. Paintings like Woman with Japanese Album, Madame Picard in her Loge, and Madame Oscar Ghysbrecht show bright colours and impressionist style. He also influenced friend Omer Coppens to move away from realism.

Van Rysselberghe also began scouting new artists in Paris for Les XX.

Neo-Impressionism

In 1886, he saw Seurat’s La Grande Jatte, which introduced him to pointillism. He and others like Henry Van de Velde and Anna Boch brought this style to Belgium, though it was not well received at first. Despite criticism, van Rysselberghe adopted the technique. Works like Madame Oscar Ghysbrecht (1887) and Madame Edmond Picard (1887) reflect this change.

That summer, he visited Eugène Boch in Paris and met artists like Signac, Degas, and Toulouse-Lautrec. He invited many of them to exhibit in Brussels.

Third Trip to Morocco

In 1887, he joined a Belgian delegation to Meknès, Morocco. He sketched extensively and drew the Sultan Hassan I. Back in Brussels, he painted from these sketches using a pointillist style—Nomad Encampment, Gate of Mansour-El-Hay, and The Great Souk are among his Moroccan pointillist works. After completing these, he moved away from Moroccan themes and focused on portraiture in his pointillist style.

Pointillism

His 1888 Portrait of Alice Sèthe in blue and gold marked a turning point in his career. He used only dots and embraced full pointillism. Alice later married sculptor Paul Dubois, and her sister Maria married architect Henry Van de Velde. Van Rysselberghe painted several portraits of his wife Maria and their daughter Elisabeth. They married in 1889 and honeymooned in England and Brittany, where he painted more Neo-impressionist works.

He also helped bring Vincent van Gogh to the 1890 Les XX exhibition, where Anna Boch bought Van Gogh’s Red Vineyard, the only painting he sold during his lifetime.

Besides portraits, he painted landscapes and seascapes like Dunes in Cadzand (1893) and The Rainbow (1894).

In 1895, he travelled through Eastern Europe creating posters for the Compagnie des Wagons-Lits, including Royal Palace Hotel, Ostende (1899).

He moved to Paris in 1897 and contributed to the anarchist magazine Les Temps Nouveaux, alongside artists like Signac and Pissarro.

By the late 1890s, he began transitioning away from pointillism to broader brushstrokes, as seen in The Hippodrome at Boulogne-sur-Mer (1900) and The Reading (1903).

He famously failed to recognize the talent of young Pablo Picasso, dismissing his Blue Period works as “ugly and uninteresting.”

Later Years

After 1903, his pointillist technique became looser. By 1910, he had abandoned it entirely. His brushstrokes became longer, and he used brighter colours, painting vivid scenes like Olive Trees near Nice (1905) and Bathers under Pine Trees at Cavalière (1905).

In 1907 and 1908, he vacationed in Jersey with his family, producing many landscapes and portraits, including one of André Gide.

In 1911, his brother Octave built him a house in Saint-Clair on the French Riviera, where he settled permanently. He continued painting Mediterranean landscapes and portraits and was commissioned to create large murals and floral compositions.

He also focused on female nudes, like After the Bath (1910) and Girl in a Bathtub (1925). Later, he even sculpted a Head of André Gide.

Théo van Rysselberghe died in Saint-Clair in 1926 and is buried in Lavandou, next to painter Henri-Edmond Cross.

Today, many of his works remain in private collections and are rarely exhibited. A major retrospective was held in Brussels and The Hague in 2006. In 2005, his painting Port Cette (1892) sold for a record €2.6 million. inspiration google - www.vwart.com