A major exhibition of the work of the Belgian painter Pierre Alechinsky has opened in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels.

A major exhibition of the work of the Belgian painter Pierre Alechinsky has opened in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels.

These works map out the painter's entire development from his early period right through to the present.

Alechinsky is arguably the most famous Belgian of the Cobra Movement.

Cobra was a major art movement of the fifties centred on Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam, the three capitals from which it takes its name.

Cobra championed liberty and spontaneity in art and sought its inspiration in the drawings of children and the mentally insane.

The movement includes such famous names as Corneille, Karel Appel, Asger Jorn and Carl-Henning Pedersen.

The exhibition includes early work, but also paintings dating from after Alechinsky's travels to Japan and the United States when he included far more space in his works.

Visits to Niagra Falls and a volcano on Tenerife also provided inspiration for the motives of his paintings.

Carnival and masks

Another motive that returns again and again is the headdress of the Gilles de Binche, the folk costume of the carnival revellers of the town of Binche (Hainaut). An 80-year-old Alechinsky told the daily De Standaard that he attended carnival celebrations in 1946.

This was the first time that the celebration took place since the beginning of the war.

After the sober war years the carnival turned into a magnificent celebration that left a tremendous mark on the artist.

Alechinsky has lived in Paris since the fifties, but still feels Belgian.

He was an acquaintance of the surrealist painter René Magritte, who together with the Ostend painter James Ensor greatly influenced his work.

Alechinsky from A to Z until the end of March 2008

The exhibition Alechinsky from A to Z can be seen in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in the Regentschapstraat in Brussels until 30 March.

For more information click here to visit the official site of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.

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