Felix Labisse Biography
Felix Labisse was born in 1905 in Marchiennes, France. After the First World War in 1923 he moved to Heist-sur-Mer in Belgium and the following year he carried out his military service in Cambrai. In 1927 the family business went bankrupt and his family moved to Ostend. Labisse abandoned his career as a sailor to devote himself to painting. In 1928, he founded the Ostend Cinema Club with Henri Storck, Firmin Cuypers, Victor de Knop, Alfred Courmes, Robert Elleboudt, Désiré Steyns, Pierre Vandervoort and Henry Van Vyve. In July of the same year, he presented his first private exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art.
In 1930 he teamed up with Henry Van Vyve to found a literary and artistic magazine, Tribord, which published eight issues from late 1930 to 1931. In 1932 Labisse moved to Paris, where he became friends with some great names in French culture such as Jean- Louis Barrault, Robert Desnos, Antonin Artaud, Roger Vitrac and Germaine Krull. Labisse designed the sets and costumes for Autour d'une mère, the first show staged by Jean-Louis Barrault at the Théâtre de l'Atelier in 1935.
In 1943 Labisse had a great pictorial activity and created works such as The Happiness of Being Loved, The Prodigal Daughter and The Courtesans. In 1944 he illustrated Le Bain avec Andromède by Robert Desnos and the latter dedicated a monograph to him in 1945. In 1963 the first blue women appeared in Labisse's paintings.
Felix Labisse's early creations were influenced by Flemish Expressionism and James Ensor. His mature work, however, was characterized by metamorphosis and the exploration of imaginative, magical and erotic frontiers as in the painting Felicità da amore, where a female character appears with the head of a lioness. Labisse's works feature female characters with lascivious bodies, soft shapes and harsh colors, moving in a strange and timeless world.
