Léon Spilliaert in the art collections of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels (RMFAB)
By Sarah Van Ooteghem, Curator of works on paper modern art (19th-21st century) RMFAB
Léon Spilliaert is one of the modern Belgian artists best represented in the collections of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels (RMFAB). Thanks to some important donations and bequests, as well as a targeted acquisition policy, all periods of his oeuvre are represented by impressive works. In 2006, the expertise of former RMFAB curator Anne-Adriaens Pannier, who devoted a dissertation to the artist, led to the retrospective exhibition Léon Spilliaert. Een vrije geest (Léon Spilliaert. A free spirit). Between 2013 and 2023, Spilliaert’s drawings were displayed in alternating arrangements in a separate room at the Fin-de-Siècle Museum.
The first three works in the collection were donated by Spilliaert himself in 1927, on the occasion of the opening of the Fierens-Gevaert Room. After his death, the RMFAB purchased a total of ten works from Rachel Vergison, his widow. Their only daughter Madeleine Spilliaert donated ten more works in 1984, including two sketchbooks and archival documents. The last major addition to the collection came in 1990, thanks to the bequest of Mrs Alla Goldschmidt-Safieva.
By mid-2024, the RMFAB held a total of 45 works of art on paper by Spilliaert. The majority consists of individual drawings dating from about 1902 to 1945. The Spilliaert collection also includes an unpublished poster design, a lithograph portrait of Emile Verhaeren and a print album dedicated to Spilliaert's wife with hand-coloured illustrations of Maurice Maeterlinck’s collection of poems Serres chaudes (Hothouses). In addition, the RMFAB preserve a substantial correspondence archive in the Archives of Contemporary Art in Belgium (ACAB).
As the icing on the cake, in 2022 the RMFAB received a most remarkable loan from the King Baudouin Foundation: the unique three-volume edition of Maeterlinck’s writings for theatre, entitled Théâtre, containing no less than 348 original drawings by the young Spilliaert (1902-1903). Because of their cultural-historical and artistic significance, the books have been afforded the status of Topstuk van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap (Masterpiece of the Flemish Community).
