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(b Nantes, Sept 17, 1907; d Paris, May 8, 1977).

French painter, sculptor, draughtsman and poet. He moved in 1926 to Paris, where he became involved with Surrealism, soon afterwards publishing his first collection of poems, Opoponax (Paris, 1927). In 1934 he exhibited a series of automatic drawings, which were followed by images produced with the assistance of objets trouvés: in Street Object (1936; Paris, Pompidou), for instance, he placed a sheet of paper on the road and then drove a car over it so as to leave the imprint of the tyre tracks. Another work of this period consisted of a bus sign bearing the same letters as his initials, so that it could be read as his signature. He also produced assemblages in a Surrealist spirit, such as Morphology of Desire (wood, plaster, metal, candle and torch, 1934–7; Paris, Pompidou). After World War II Bryen turned increasingly towards painting, through which he became a leading exponent of ...

(b Antwerp, April 29, 1920; d Brussels, Sept 19, 1993).

Belgian writer, painter, collagist, draughtsman and sculptor. He left school at the age of 14 and in 1937 met Magritte, and the Belgian writers Louis Scutenaire (1905–87) and Paul Nougé (1895–1967), through whom he soon became drawn into the Surrealist movement. Though largely involved with writing poetry and essays, like many Surrealists he also produced collages, such as La Traversée du rêve (1938–45; Paris, Gal. Isy Brachot). Also in 1937 he participated in his first Surrealist exhibition, Surrealist Objects and Poems, organized by E. L. T. Mesens at the London Gallery in London. From 1940 to 1941 he was held prisoner in Germany. On his return to Belgium he founded the publishing house L’Aiguille Aimantée, which issued Paul Eluard’s Moralité du sommeil in 1941. In 1943 he published the first monograph on Magritte and two years later took part in the important exhibition of Belgian Surrealism at the Galerie La Boëtie in Brussels. In ...

(b Brussels, Nov 27, 1903; d Brussels, May 13, 1971).

Belgian writer, exhibition organizer, collagist and composer. As a young composer he was influenced by Erik Satie. He collaborated on Dadaist-inspired journals and published, with René Magritte, Œsophage (1925), the only issue of which, containing the poems of Hans Arp, Tristan Tzara and Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, remained faithful to the Dada spirit. In 1926 Marie, a ‘journal bi-mensuel pour la belle jeunesse’, published under his direction, pursued the same vein; it only had two issues. Mesens was involved in the establishment of a Surrealist movement (see Surrealism), which was strongly permeated with Dadaism in Belgium. In 1927 he became Director of the Galerie L’Epoque and in 1931 of the Galerie Mesens, both in Brussels. Miró, Magritte and Max Ernst all exhibited with him. He founded the Editions Nicolas Flamel, which published the Surrealists’ collective homage to a parricide, Violette Nozières (Brussels, 1933), André Breton’s lecture ‘Qu’est-ce que le surréalisme’, held on the occasion of the first international Surrealist exhibition organized in Brussels by Mesens under the auspices of ...