The artist: some facts and dates

Fernand Khnopff (Grembergen 1858 – Brussels 1921), the offspring of an old cosmopolitan family, spent the greater part of his childhood in Bruges, where his father was a magistrate. The very special atmosphere of this somewhat moribund and decadent city left an indelible impression on the young artist-to-be, which he tried to capture in later years in his work. In 1864 was born his sister Marguerite, who was to become his favourite model throughout his life. In 1866 the family bade farewell to Bruges, and moved to Brussels, where Khnopff’s father was appointed a judge. Summers were spent in Fosset, a tiny hamlet in the Ardennes. To please his parents, Fernand Khnopff started studying law at the Université libre of Brussels. At the same time he developed a passion for French literature, his favourite authors including Baudelaire, Flaubert and Leconte de Lisle. Together with his younger brother Georges, a poet and musician, he was frequented a group of young Belgian writers, among them Max Waller, Iwan Gilkin, Georges Rodenbach and Emile Verhaeren. Shortly afterwards Khnopff quit university and began learning the rudiments of painting in Xavier Mellery’s studio. At the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts he took drawing lessons from 1876 to 1879 alongside James Ensor.  This period included several extended stays in Paris, working in the atelier of J. Lefebvre and the Académie Julien. Khnopff also used his time in Paris to study Ingres, Delacroix, Moreau and Alfred Stevens, as well as English artists Millais and Burne-Jones. In 1881 he exhibited for the first time at the L’Essor salon in Brussels. Two years later we encounter Khnopff again as a founder member of Les XX, and later also La Libre Esthétique, two highly important and progressive artists’ groups, at whose much talked-about salons he was a frequent exhibitor. In 1885 he came into contact with Joséphin Péladan, the future grand master of the esoteric La Rose + Croix society in Paris, producing various frontispieces for this unusual author’s works. It is not surprising therefore that Khnopff’s works occupy a place of honour at the Salons that Péladan organised in Paris from 1892 to 1897. From the 1880s onwards he began exhibiting in England, which he visited for the first time in 1891.  In London he met pre-Raphaelites Hunt, Watts, Ford Maddox Brown and Burne-Jones and began contributing articles to The Studio, the leading British art magazine, introducing many Belgian artists and exhibitions to the British public. At the first Secession exhibition in Vienna in 1898 he exhibited no less than 21 works.  This event brought Fernand Khnopff international fame, whilst making a deep impression on Gustav Klimt. In 1900 Khnopff began designing his own house as a temple for his own “Ego”. He himself drew the plans, designed the decorations and established the colour scheme. Unfortunately this highly original building – in fact a monument – was demolished after the artist’s death. Between 1903 and 1913 Khnopff designed costumes and decors for the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie. During this period he received two major commissions, one for a ceiling for the Maison Communale of Saint Gilles and another for the wall decorations in the music room of the famous modernistic Palais Stoclet.

Khnopff reveals himself as a particularly multi-facetted artist, working not only in oils, pastels and mixed techniques, but also as a sculptor, engraver and engraver. He also produced many excellent photographs of his works, enhanced with pastels or coloured crayon, some of which he signed as originals. At the end of his life he was in constant demand, illustrating programmes for all kinds of charity and patriotic events, and even a banknote, which was never produced.  In the same context he also produced lacework patterns to give new impetus to this declining art form.

Finally we can mention that Fernand Khnopff’s work can be admired in the world’s leading museums as one of the most important representatives of Belgian sy