Self-Portrait with Mirror, the title of a masterpiece in Mu.ZEE’s collection, certainly captures the imagination. But, the problem is that at least ten of Spilliaert’s forty plus self-portraits feature mirrors. A similar problem arises with regard to works in which the artist depicted trees, of which there may be hundreds. It raises the question of the origin of the titles of Spilliaert’s works.
Spilliaert did provide some of his works with titles. He wrote them in block letters in the picture plane on many of his earliest works from 1900 to 1904: Solitude or La Noyade (The Drowning). The same is true of the prints from a number of series such as Serres Chaudes or Plaisirs d’Hiver: they too feature a title in the picture plane or in an accompanying frame. In some cases, Spilliaert’s correspondence reveals information about the titles he chose: when he or his correspondents wrote about works that had, for example, been exhibited or sold. In 1913, Spilliaert wrote about the State’s potential purchase of Vieille maison de pêcheurs (Old Fisherman's House).1 Exhibition catalogues from before 1946 also offer clues and we can assume that the artist helped decide on or approved the specified titles. The catalogue Galerie du Centaure. Exposition de Léon Spilliaert from October 1922 lists 56 such titles. Among them we find Mon portrait (My Portrait) as the title for a self-portrait, and Le peintre Permeke (The Painter Permeke), presumably the portrait he produced in 1921, as well as Le parc, L'Arbre and Marine (The Park, The Tree and Seascape); the artist produced many dozens of works depicting parks, trees and the sea.
Many works have been given titles by museum staff, researchers and art dealers. They are usually descriptive, some are subject to interpretation. For example, the date can help determine which city or park a tree in question is located.
We will have to wait for the publication of the annotated edition of Spilliaert’s correspondence and, above all, the exhaustive and systematic catalogue raisonné of all his works, both by Dr. Anne Adriaens-Pannier, before assigning coherent titles to Spilliaert’s works.
In the meantime, on this website we use the titles included in the literature for the time being. The title is provided in the language of the website page being viewed. So here it’s in English. If Spilliaert himself inserted a title in the work, we also include his original title in the original language - almost always French. Spilliaert wrote the title of several works on the back of the pieces concerned. This often appears to correspond to an exhibition. On the reverse side of the work known as Moonlit Beach (1908), Spilliaert wrote: ‘l’ancien Kursaal d’Ostende’ preceded by ‘n° 19’, which probably refers to an exhibition catalogue.2
