Édouard Léon Théodore Mesens (27 November 1903 – 13 May 1971) was a Belgian artist and writer associated with the Belgian Surrealist movement.

Biography

Mesens was born in Brussels, Belgium. He started his artistic career as a musician influenced by

Erik Satie Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (, ; ; 17 May 18661 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. He was the son of a French father and a British mother. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but was an und ...

and an author of dadaist poems. He was a publisher of the books ''Œesophage'' and ''Marie''with his lifetime friend and soulmate René Magritte. His activity as one of the leaders of the surrealist movement in Belgium was eased by him being an owner of a gallery, where he organised the first surrealist exhibition in Belgium in 1934. He also went to co-organise the London International Surrealist Exhibition, which made him settle in London. There he became the director of the London Gallery (which he ran during the late 1930s and after the war with Roland Penrose) and the chief editor of the '' London Bulletin'' (1938–1940), which was one of the most important bulletins among the English-language Surrealist periodicals. Mesens died in 1971 following a "long, lingering, painful illness".Franklin Rosemont, "E.L.T. Mesens", in ''Radical America'', vol. 6, no. 1 (Jan.–Feb. 1972), pp. 103–107. According to an obituary published by poet and historian Franklin Rosemont, Mesens committed "suicide by

absinthe Absinthe (, ) is an anise-flavoured spirit derived from several plants, including the flowers and leaves of ''Artemisia absinthium'' ("grand wormwood"), together with green anise, sweet fennel, and other medicinal and culinary herbs. Historical ...

", drinking himself to death by wilfully disregarding doctors' orders to abstain from alcohol.

Works

* ''Alphabet sourd aveugle'' - Flamel, Brussels - with preface and a note by Paul Éluard (1933) * ''Troisième Front'' - London Gallery Editions (1944) * ''Free Unions - Unions Libres'' - Directed by Simon Watson Taylor (1946) * ''The Cubist Spirit in Its Time'' - London Gallery Editions - with Robert Melville (1947) * ''Poèmes, 1923–1958'' - Le Terrain Vague (1959)

References

External links

Tate Collection
- Four works by ELT Mesens
Inventory of the E. L. T. Mesens papers
- at the Getty Research Institute {{DEFAULTSORT:Mesens, E L T 1903 births 1971 deaths Belgian artists Belgian surrealist writers Belgian writers in French 1971 suicides Belgian expatriates in the United Kingdom Belgian art dealers British art dealers

Biography

Works

References

Further reading

External links