Léon Spilliaert, singular artist, friendships and affinities
With Anne Adriaens-Pannier and Chantal Pattyn
◇ 24 November 2026
On the occasion of the exhibition Soleil Noir, the Boghossian Foundation welcomes Anne Adriaens-Pannier, a leading specialist in the work of Léon Spilliaert, for a conversation with Chantal Pattyn.
A self-taught and deeply singular artist, Léon Spilliaert (1881–1946) developed a body of work almost exclusively on paper, outside the major artistic movements of his time. Inspired more by literature and philosophy than by the visual arts, he developed a personal visual language marked by introspection, particularly intense in the works created between 1907 and 1909.
From the North Sea to interiors, the conversation will explore the themes that run throughout his work, as well as the friendships and encounters that accompanied the artist from Ostend to Brussels. It will also examine his connections with his contemporaries: can we speak of influences, or rather of affinities and shared sensibilities?
A conversation offering a deeper understanding of the singularity and remarkable modernity of Léon Spilliaert’s work.
From 1974 to 2011, Anne Adriaens-Pannier was Head of Department at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels and curator of the Works on Paper collection at the Museum of Modern Art. She curated numerous monographic and thematic exhibitions devoted to 20th-century art.
In 1989, she began a PhD devoted to Léon Spilliaert, which she obtained from Ghent University in 2003. Her book Léon Spilliaert. Le regard de l’âme was published in 2006, on the occasion of the major retrospective held at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, and was subsequently translated into English in 2019.
From 2016 to 2021, she was Artistic Director of Spilliaert Huis in Ostend. She continues her research on the artist through the preparation of his catalogue raisonné and the annotated publication of his correspondence. As a curator, she has presented Spilliaert’s work internationally, notably in London (2020), Paris (2021), Lausanne (2023) and Neuss (2024). She is currently contributing to a Spilliaert retrospective in Houston and Philadelphia (2027–2028) and is preparing, together with the Royal Academy in London, a touring exhibition in Japan scheduled for 2029.
She is the author of numerous articles and publications devoted to Léon Spilliaert.
Chantal Pattyn is Director of the cultural radio station Klara an art historian.
