DIANA NAYLOR E.L.T. MESENS: HIS CONTRIBUTION TO THE DADA AND SURREALiST MOVEMENTS IN BELG JUM AND ENGLAND AS ARTIST, POET AND DEALER. A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF Ph.D. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON. -2- E.L.T. MESENS: HIS CONTRIBUTION TO THE DADA AND SURREALiST MOVEMENTS IN BELGIUM AND ENG LAN D AS ARTIST, POET AN D DEALER. ABSTRACT OF THESIS The aim of this thesis is to provide a survey of E.L.TS Mesens' activities within the Dada and Surrealist movements and an initial assessment of his work. The thesis outlines Mesens' career and considers his work as an organiser and polemicist of the Dada and Surrealist movements in Belgium and the Surrealist movement in England. The period in which Mesens initiated Dada activities in Brussels and developed important contacts with Paris, though brief, affected his whole outlook on art and poetry. The devel opment of Dada and the work of a number of European Dadaists whose work influenced Mesens' own development and the Dada movement in Antwerp and Brussels is discussed. Differences emerged between the theory and practice of Surrealism in Paris and Brussels and the thesis considers the diverging development of Surrealism in each of these centres. Mesens' involvement in the Surrealist movement in Belgium is examined and his theoretical position is appraised. The thesis also briefly outlines late nineteenth and early twentieth century art movements in Belgium, in particular Symbolism and Expressionhm, in order that the Dada and Surrealist movements may be seen in context. Mesens' main efforts were concentrated in his work as an art dealer in Brussels and London, where he promoted the work of Dada and Surreaflst artists in particular. From 1954 onwards, however, he turned to the making of collage, a medium which he hod already explored during the 1920's. The thesis will provide an examination of Mesens' work as an art dealer in Belgium between 1928 and 1938, and -3- in England between 1938 and 1950. It will provide an analysis of Mesens' poetry, mostl y written between 1923 and 1940, and his collages both of the early period in the 1920's, and later from 1954 until his death in April 1971. -4- TABLE OF CONTENTS Page No. Introduction. 5 Chapter 1. E .L.T. Mesens. The Early Years. 8 2. Modernism in Belgium. 31 3. The Dada Movement, 1916 - 1922. 42 4. Surrealist Art in France. 64 5. Dada in Belgium. 88 6. Surrealism in Belgium. 103 7. Mesens' Understanding of Dada and Surrealism. 123 8. Mesens' Work as an Art Dealer in Belgium 1924 - 1938. 132 9. Mesens' Poetry. 144 10. Mesens' Early Collages, 1924 - 1931. 157 11. Mesens' Work as an Art Dealer in London 1936 - 1940. 170 12. Mesens' Collages, 1954- 1971. 221 13. Mesens in London 1940 - 1950. 260 Conclusion. 289 List of Illustrations. 293 Appendix A. Extract from "Le Miroir infidIe" Le Savoir Vivre, Brussels, 1946. 302 B. One man exhibitions of Mesens' collages, listed chronologically. 305 C. Group exhbitions in which Mesens' work was exhbited, listed chronologically. 306 D. Mesens Collection. 308 Bibliography. 318 -5- INTRODUCTION E.L.T. Mesens (1903 - 1971) was very well known in Surrealist circles in London, Paris and Brussels. Abandoning a muskal career in 1926, Mesens worked as an art dealer in Brussels until 1938 when he moved to London and opened The London Gallery. The gallery closed in 1950 and Mesens devoted the remaining years of his life to making collages and occasionally mounting exhibitions. He wrote poetry from 1923 onwards and his complete works were eventually published in Paris in 1958. Mesens played a major part in establishing Surrealism in Belgium through his early connections with the Dada and Surrealist painters and poets in Paris; and in his capacity as an art dealer he pub- licsed the work of French, Belgian, German, English and American Dada and Surrealist artists. In London Mesens worked with the English Surrealist Group until its demise in 1947, exhibflng their work and organising many of their activities, and he mounted important exhibitions of Surrealist painters in England both before and after the War. He also edited the London Bulletin, (1938-40,) a major review of Surrealist art and poetry, together with a number of tracts, manifestoand magazines in Brussels in the 1920's and 1930's. There is no one main source for information about all of Mesens' activities. Some detaiLs of his childhood and student years are to be found in Jean Scutenoire's book A Mon Am Mesens, privately published in Brussels i n 1972, which was written with Mesens' collabora- tion and was intended to cover his whole life. Scutenore started writing it in 1971 but sadly Mesens died at a stage when Scutenaire had by no means managed to get enough material together to publish a monograph. It Is, one must assume, accurate on details of Mesens' childhood and early years, but becomes somewhat vague in dealing with his career after the age of eghteen. Details about Mesens' early career have had to be elucidated from unpublished sources in the Dubucq collection, Brussels, transcripts of radio and T.V. broadcasts in which Mesens was -6- interviewed in London and Brussels, together with material from cata- logues, periodicals and newspapers. Josh Vovelle's thesis, Ic Surralisme in Belgigue, published in Brussels in 1972, gives a fairly accurate introduction to Mesens' activities within the context of the Surrealist movement in Belgium though her coverage of Dada in Belgium is sketchy, and she does not discuss Mesens' early involvement with the Constructivst and Expressionist movements. Several articles discuss Dada and Surrealism in Belgium: Rick Sauwen's L'Esprit Dada en Belgigue, 1970, and two articles by the Belgian critic And(e Blavier, Le SurraUsme en Belgigue, 1968, and La Belgigue Sauvage, 1972, which give admirable short, concise intro- ductions to the movement and are good sources for Mesens' activities as a publisher of manifestos and tracts. The introduction to Christian Bussy's Anthologie du Surralisme en Belgigue, 1973, also provides use- ful background information and a selection of documents and writings by members of the Belgian Surrealist group. Mesens' work as an art dealer in Belgium has not been given adequate attention in any text. This thesis does attempt to indi- cate Mesens' stature as an art dealer in Brussels, but until the archives at present in private hands in the Belgian capital are made fully available to scholars, it will be difficult to give a thorough assessment. Similarly, Mesens' relationship with the Surrealists in Paris will not be properly understood until these sources have been explored more fully. The author has been allowed very limited access to the above mentioned archives. A brief consideration of Mesens' work as a dealer in London before the War appears in Dennis Farr's recent study English Art 1870 - 1940. Mesens' work as a dealer since the War has not yet been assessed, however, nor has his relationship with the English Surrealists. The main sources for i nformation about these activities are the London Bulletin, the Herbert Read correspondence, University of Victoria, Canada, the Conroy Maddox correspondence, Tate Gallery Archives, the Dubucq Collection, Brussels, catalogues, periodicals, newspapers and reviews. The author is indebted to the critic and jazz singer George Melly for the help and encouragement which he has -7- unerringly given. Mr. Melly worked at the London Gallery after the War and was a great friend of Mesens. Also extremely helpful have been a number of poets, artists, critics and art dealers who knew Mesens well and who gave interviews and corresponded with the author: Sir Roland Penrose, Henry Moore, Conroy Maddox, Roy Edwards, Eileen Agar, Annely Juda , Jean Scutenaire, Hugo van den Perre, Jean Milo, Feyyaz Fergar, Francine Legrand, Giselle OlUnger-Zinque, Maurice Jadot, Nigel Henderson. The lengthiest discussion to date of Mesens' collages is in Vovelle's book. However this is by no means exhaustive and it does not analyse Mesens' early collages adequately. Vovelle does not con- sider Mesens' poetry either, an important aspect of his work. No analy- sis Fkas ever been made of his poems which were first published in a num- ber of periodicals in Brussels, London and Paris between 1923 and 1958. Mesens published two short collections, Alphabet sourd aveugle (Brussels, 1933) and Troisime Front (London 1944), before the collected edition appeared in 1959. The main sources of reference for Mesens' collages are catalogues, in particular Jacques Brunius' catalogue for Mesens' exhibition at Knokke-le-Zoute, 1963, and an exhibition held at the Galleria del Naviglio, Milan, 1965. Mesens' attitude towards Surrealism has been elucidated from his own writings - in particular from two unpublished manuscripts in the Dubucq collection, and a text pub- lished in Le Sovoir Vivre, Brussels, 1946 (Appendix A). The author's work was assisted by a grant from the Central Research Fund of London University in 1977, in order to facilitate research at the Museum of Modern Art, Brussels. The author was also granted sabbatical leave by Essex County Council in order to complete the research. These grants are gratefully acknowledged, as is the invalu- able help given by Mesens' frends, colleagues and contemporaries. -8- CHAPTER ONE E.L.T. Mesens. The Early Years. nivers voue au massacre sines hurlant Ia misere niformes pour tous les temps nons sans importance 1 rinoires aristocratiques. U The world which Mesens mocked in this extract from his Alphabet sourd aveugle was that in which he grew up: the prosperous, self-satisfied world of bourgeois Belgium. Brussels where he was born was, and is still, a ci ty divided by senseless disputes between Fleming and Walloon, 2 a city in which materialism remains the order of the day.