2024 is the year of Ensor. To mark the occasion, the King Baudouin Foundation is lending its painting Squelette regardant chinoiserie (Skeleton Looking at Chinoiseries) to the Bozar’s exhibition of Ensor’s work. The museum has chosen to redistribute part of the takings for this exhibition to the independent NGO Stand up to Cancer!, to support it in its fight against cancer.

Squelette regardant chinoiseries

Squelette regardant chinoiseries is one of James Ensor’s most important works. In one respect, the work is still part of the series of intimate and somewhat overcrowded bourgeois interiors that characterized Ensor’s early work, but this painting was also the first in which he introduced the figure of the skeleton, a motif that would become a recurrent element in his work. Squelette regardant chinoiseries has been entrusted to the Fine Arts Museum of Ghent, which also houses numerous other important works by James Ensor. The painting has filled a previously important gap in the museum’s collection and it now represents an essential link in the collections of Ensor in Belgium.

The exhibition ‘James Ensor. Maestro’

James Ensor. Maestro is an anthology of the artist’s work and Squelette regardant chinoiseries plays a key role in the exhibition by providing the viewer with an interpretation of the Maestro’s artistic development. Whilst Ensor excelled as a painter, he was also a talented writer, a great music lover and a composer. The Bozar is paying homage to the artist with an exhibition that features all of Ensor’s talents with a selection of over 150 works. Visitors can discover the diversity of his output, from his earliest creations as a young man through to those completed in the latter part of his life: oil paintings, works on paper, prints, manuscripts, photographs and handwritten scores. Special attention has been given to his lesser-known works, his graphic creations and musical compositions such as La Gamme d’Amour.

Culture for the benefit of a good cause

Some of the proceeds from this exhibition will help support Kom Op Tegen Kanker! The Bozar will re-distribute part of its takings to this association. The King Baudouin Foundation is supporting this project through the loan of one of the artist’s works, but also by emphasising its full support for a project that enables culture to benefit a good cause. The Foundation is convinced of the importance of the connecting power of art.

Practical information:
Exhibition ‘James Ensor. Maestro’
09/02/2024 – 23/06/2024
BOZAR/Palais des Beaux-Arts
Rue Ravenstein 23
1000 BRUSSELS 29
Tuesday to Sunday: 10h00 – 18h00