Michel Seuphor

Born Fernand Berckelaers, he adopted the name Seuphor, an anagram of Orpheus, in 1917. His interest in the avant-garde led him in 1921 to co-found the magazine Het Overzicht, and from 1922 his travels brought him into contact with artistic circles in Berlin, Rome, Amsterdam and Paris. In 1929, together with Joaquín Torres García, he founded Cercle et Carré, directing its magazine and bringing together contributions from artists including Mondrian, Hans and Sophie Arp, Léger, Schwitters and Kandinsky. After falling ill, he left Paris in 1934 and settled in the south of France, returning to the Parisian art scene after WWII and organising exhibitions devoted to abstract art. In 1949 he published L’Art abstrait, ses origines, ses premiers maîtres, followed from the 1950s by an increasingly intense activity as an art critic, particularly focused on twentieth-century abstraction, which led to Dictionnaire de la peinture abstraite (1957) and Sculpture de ce siècle (1959).

Sophie Taeuber-Arp / Jean Arp / Fernand Léger / Wassily Kandinsky / Joaquín Torres García / Piet Mondriaan / Kurt Schwitters