
James Ensor (1860–1949) filled his canvases with masks, skeletons, and grotesque crowds. Born in Ostend, Belgium, the son of an English father and Belgian mother who ran a souvenir shop selling carnival masks and curiosities, he was fascinated by these masks from childhood. They would haunt his paintings for sixty years.
After studying at the Brussels Royal Academy, Ensor returned to Ostend and rarely left. His early realistic works gave way to bizarre subject matter by the mid-1880s. Paintings like Skeletons Fighting over a Hanged Man (1891) and The Scandalized Masks (1883) use carnival imagery to expose human ugliness. His masterpiece, the enormous Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889 (1888), depicts Jesus amid a grotesque parade of masked revelers, a work considered a forerunner of 20th-century Expressionism.
For years, critics rejected his work as offensive and obscene. The avant-garde Les XX group expelled him. But recognition eventually came. In 1929, King Albert I made him a Baron. In 1933, France decorated him with the Legion of Honor. By his old age, Ensor was a beloved figure in Ostend, taking daily walks through the town. He influenced German Expressionists like Emil Nolde and George Grosz, and later the Surrealists. He died in Ostend at eighty-nine. His work fills the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels and the Museum of Modern Art.
2 paintings catalogued with museum locations
2 museums display Ensor's works. Click any museum to see visiting info and the specific works they hold.
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