Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1872 Saint-Gilles, Belgium

Died: 1939 Uccle, Belgium

Biography

Painter André Edmond Alfred Cluysenaar was born on 31 May 1872 in Saint-Gilles, Brussels, Belgium into a distinguished artistic family. His father, Alfred Cluysenaar, was a renowned historical painter, known for his monumental fresco Les chevaliers de l’Apocalypse at the University of Ghent and a portrait of his son titled Une vocation, now in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique. Trained initially by his father and later by François-Joseph Navez, André began his career with historical and religious subjects. Although he briefly worked as a sculptor - exhibiting a Saint Sebastian in 1897 - he soon dedicated himself fully to painting. That year, he married Frances Alice Gordon, daughter of the Scottish industrialist William Gordon. Their twins, John and Ada (Dolly), were born in 1899.

Cluysenaar’s early work, firmly rooted in romanticism, included still lifes and genre scenes. However, he soon developed a distinctive approach to portraiture, characterised by fluid brushwork, elegant poses, and an often luminous palette. In 1902, he gained widespread recognition with a portrait of his wife and daughter shown at the Salon de la Société des Beaux-Arts. This success brought him numerous commissions from the Belgian elite. While his portraits displayed a refined surface charm, critics noted a psychological intensity that distinguished his practice from that of his peers. Over time, his style shifted toward a looser and more impressionistic handling, particularly in his depictions of women, who often appear semi-nude and rendered with chromatic subtlety and sensual softness. Later in life, he also painted still lifes, nudes, and landscapes, praised for their colourist freshness and lyrical atmosphere.

In 1914, following the German invasion of Belgium, Cluysenaar fled to London with his family, joining a wider community of over 1,600 Belgian artists and cultural figures displaced by the war. Like fellow artists, such as Émile Claus, Valerius de Saedeleer, Jenny Montigny, Constant Permeke and Jean Guillaume Rosier, he found refuge in the UK and quickly integrated into its artistic and cultural networks. During the war years he participated in numerous group shows representing Belgian artists at the front and modern Belgian painting, including the 1915 Belgian section of the War Relief Exhibition held at Royal Academy of Arts. His subsequent 1917 painting Britannia with Belgian Refugees powerfully articulates the emotional and political resonance of this exile. Rendered in expressive tones, the composition presents a seated Britannia sheltering a weary mother and child, framed against a backdrop of burning towns. The maternal allegory and imperial symbolism echo contemporaneous visual strategies, which cast Britain as both protector and moral saviour. A gift from Belgian refugees in Leicester, the painting (now held in Leicester Museum & Art Gallery) testifies not only to Britain’s cultural welcome, but also to the vital role of visual art in shaping wartime narratives of solidarity and defence. As Katy Norris notes, artists such as Cluysenaar responded to the atrocities in Belgium by foregrounding civilian suffering, particularly that of women and children, thereby countering jingoistic rhetoric with images of shared humanity and refuge (ArtUK, 2022). Cluysenaar's contributions coincided with a broader campaign of support for Belgian artists, including benefit exhibitions, concerts and publications that aimed to preserve Belgian culture and align Britain’s military role with the defence of European civilisation. Reproductions of his works appeared alongside those of fellow Belgian refugee artists in the 1916 volume A Book of Belgium’s Gratitude, a collection of essays and images by prominent Belgians created to convey appreciation to the British public. The featured artworks were also shown in an accompanying exhibition held at New York's Knoedler Galleries that same year.

During his years in London, Cluysenaar produced portraits of several leading figures, including Prime Minister Herbert Asquith (1919), Lord Balfour, David Lloyd George, and Émile Vandervelde. His romantic and approachable style, influenced by Alfred Stevens, appealed to British sitters during a period of social dislocation and national uncertainty. Remaining in England after the war, he separated from Alice Gordon and married Marjorie Florence Pym in 1922. While in the UK, Cluysenaar participated in a number of exhibitions focused on refugee Belgian artists.

Following his return to Brussels, Cluysenaar resumed painting portraits of political and cultural figures, such as Eugène Ysaÿe and Albert Baertsoen, while also turning inward to produce still lifes, nudes, and pastoral scenes of lyrical beauty. These later works, marked by soft luminosity, fluid form, and an emphasis on tactile surface, demonstrate a return to personal subjects and a refined painterly sensibility. His artistic output remained prolific into the final years of his life. André Cluysenaar died on 7 April 1939 in Uccle, Brussels. Shortly after his death, his son John organised a retrospective at the Petite Galerie in Brussels. Cluysenaar was remembered as a brilliant 'performer' and skilled conversationalist, whose dandyish charm masked compromises he often made to please his public. His work is held in UK public collections, including the Government Art Collection, Leicester Museum & Art Gallery, National Gallery, and Sheffield Museums.

Related books

Caterina Verdickt, 'Belgian Artists in Wales, 1914-1918' in Oliver Fairclough, Robert Hooze and Catherine Verdickt, eds., Art in Exile: Flanders, Wales and the First World War (Antwerp: Pandora, 2002), p. 54-56
Albert Eylenbosch, Alfred Cluysenaar et sa famille (Saint-Gilles: Rencontres saint-gilloises, 1994)
Louis Dumont-Wilden, André Cluysenaar, portraitiste (Brussels: Verlag Phototypie Thill, 1937)
H. S. W., 'Modern Belgian Art', 1 January 1931, Sheffield Independent, p. 4
Fanny Cluysenaar, Les Cluysenaar, une famille d'artistes (Brussels: Weissenbruch, 1928)
Emile Cammaerts et al., A Book of Belgium’s Gratitude (London: John Lane; New York: The Bodley Head; Toronto: S. B. Gundy, 1916)

Public collections

Selected exhibitions

André Cluysenaar (solo exhibition), Petite Galerie, Brussels (1939)
Modern Belgian Art (group show), Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield (1931)
Belgian Art at the Front (group show), Georgian Galleries at Waring & Gillow, London (1917)
Representative Belgian Painters (group show), 15 Old Bond Street, London (1916)
Belgian Artists (group exhibition), Knoedler Galleries, New York (1916)
Modern Belgian Art (group show), Public Art Galleries, Brighton, Sussex (1915)
Belgian section of the War Relief Exhibition (group show), Royal Academy of Arts, London (1915)
Belgian Artists (group show), Goupil Gallery, London (1914)
Group exhibition, Salon de la Société des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (1902, 1897, 1895)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [André Cluysenaar]

Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.

André Cluysenaar artist