LÉON SPILLIAERT: UNTITLED

DAVID ZWIRNER is pleased to present an exhibition of work by Belgian artist Léon Spilliaert (1881–1946) in collaboration with Agnews, Brussels, which is on view on the second floor of the gallery’s location in Paris. Best known for his works on paper, Spilliaert developed a unique vision characterized by its psychological intensity and aura of mystery over nearly fifty years.

January 15 — March 28, 2026

This presentation follows a major exhibition in France at the Musée d’Orsay in 2020–2021, as well as an acclaimed exhibition at David Zwirner New York in 2025. The exhibition, such as in New York, is curated by Dr. Noémie Goldman, specialist of nineteenth-century Belgian art and director of Agnews, Brussels. Spilliaert’s distinctive and highly enigmatic compositions reveal myriad inspirations—ranging from symbolist literature to the seaside city of Ostend, Belgium. Rarely working from a dedicated studio, and suffering from insomnia, Spilliaert skillfully mixed watercolor, gouache, pastel, ink, wash, colored pencil, and more on portable supports of paper, using various techniques to produce uniquely resplendent surfaces. Across a range of subject matter, including self-portraits, nocturnal coastal landscapes, and solitary figures in dreamlike spaces, Spilliaert’s compositions convey a sense of melancholy and stillness influenced by his life in Ostend. He has been highly influential to subsequent generations of artists—most notably, Luc Tuymans (b. 1958)—who have observed the universal qualities in Spilliaert’s depictions of the human condition.

At David Zwirner Paris, a selection of work primarily dating to a highly productive period of the 1900s and 1910s showcases the depth of the artist’s singular style. Among the earliest works on view are a selection of still lifes depicting flasks and jars in close view, characterized by their reflective surfaces that negotiate transparent and opaque qualities. These represent a brief period between late 1908 and early 1909 when, for the first time, Spilliaert rented an attic studio along the Visserskaai overlooking the Port of Ostend. There, he not only developed a fascination for the boats and masts in the port, he worked to capture what he called the “essential singularity” of objects. As art historian and Spilliaert specialist Dr. Anne Adriaens-Pannier has observed, the artist’s reflections of reality in these works prefigure the metaphysical painting of Giorgio de Chirico and the work of the surrealists. The choice to depict light-sensitive bottles further recalls Spilliaert’s family history as the son of a successful perfume maker in Ostend.

The exhibition also includes examples of Spilliaert’s celebrated self-portraits. Beginning in 1902, Spilliaert began exploring the subject of the self in a number of works produced in a variety of media. Moody atmospheres characterize the self-portraits, which often present the artist in profile or facing forward in mirrored view, as seen in Autoportrait au gilet jaune (Self-Portrait with Yellow Waistcoat, 1911). Among Spilliaert’s best-known works, the self-portraits were the subject of a comprehensive survey exhibition at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, in 2007. Spilliaert enjoyed his first successes as an artist between 1907 and 1909, participating in early exhibitions and earning recognition in the press, yet this period was flanked by bouts of illness. Wandering the promenade of Ostend at night offered Spilliaert reprieve from his insomnia, leading to the creation of his celebrated nocturnal scenes along the coast. Seen in works such as La courbe de la digue (The Bend of the Promenade, 1908), these often depict the promenade along a curved line, and render distant architectural elements nearly to the point of abstraction, distorting standard perspective. The enigmatic character of Spilliaert’s promenade scenes carry through to the landscapes of his late years, represented here by Les troncs verts (The Green Trunks, 1942–1944), from a period when Spilliaert found himself surrounded by the Sonian Forest after settling in Brussels in the final decade of his life.

The exhibition further considers Spilliaert’s depictions of solitary figures, reflecting both his personal relationships and his literary interests. In particular, the influence Spilliaert drew from the Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck, for whom Spilliaert had produced original illustrations while employed by the Brussels publisher Edmond Deman in the early 1900s, is represented in works such as Princesse Maleine, 1917. Spilliaert’s depictions of women are often distinguished by the melancholic appearance of his subjects, who quietly wait in front of a door or window. The artist’s fascination for this subject could be explained by the influence of the wives of the fishermen in Ostend, waiting for their husbands in front of the sea. Spilliaert’s women, frequently shrouded in darkness or shown with their backs turned to the viewer, embody these vibrant moments of society life occurring in front of the artist’s windows.

This exhibition extends Spilliaert’s long presence in the city of Paris, where Spilliaert was the subject of retrospectives at the Grand Palais in 1981 and the Musée d’Orsay in 2020–2021. Paris, where Spilliaert visited annually between 1904 and 1916, played a pivotal role in the development of the artist’s career, as the site of his first solo exhibition in 1913. In 1900, Spilliaert’s father gifted him his first set of pastels while in Paris, and he discovered the symbolist art movement at the World’s Fair—two events that radically altered the course of his artistic output. The rich cultural network Spilliaert found in Paris, largely through a close friendship with the Belgian poet Émile Verhaeren, would introduce him to artists and writers including Auguste Rodin, Eugène Carrière, Félix Vallotton, and the work of Paul Cézanne. To date, the largest institutional collection of Spilliaert’s work outside of Belgium is held in Paris at the Musée d’Orsay.