Michel Seuphor biography

Michel Seuphor, born in Antwerp on March 10, 1901 as Ferdinand Louis Berckelaers, adopted the pseudonym Michel Seuphor - an anagram of Orpheus - in 1917. Michel Seuphor was a versatile artist: art critic, art historian, painter, poet, and writer. His career is distinguished by a profound contribution to art history.
In 1921, at only twenty years old, he founded the avant-garde magazine "Het Overzicht" in his hometown. This was the first step in his journey into the European avant-garde. Between 1922 and 1925, he traveled between Berlin, Rome, Amsterdam, and Paris, coming into contact with pioneers of artistic movements such as cubism, dadaism, futurism, constructivism, and neoplasticism. He collaborated with renowned artists such as Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Piet Mondrian, Fernand Léger, Jean Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.
In 1925, he settled permanently in Paris. The city became the base from which he launched numerous artistic initiatives. In 1930, together with Joaquín Torres García, he founded the Cercle et Carré movement. This group, under the influence of the De Stijl movement and with the participation of artists such as Mondrian, Léger, Schwitters, Kandinsky, Le Corbusier, gathered representatives of European abstractionism. Michel Seuphor was also the director of the group's journal, significantly contributing to the spread of abstract art.
Michel Seuphor's work as an artist is characterized by the exclusive use of paper, pen drawings, and Indian ink. He creates abstract forms through the use of closely spaced parallel lines, playing with contrasts of light and darkness to evoke inner truths.
In 1931, Michel Seuphor temporarily left Paris for health reasons but returned in 1938. During this period, he organized important exhibitions such as "The First Masters of Abstract Art" in 1949, "50 Years of Abstract Art" in 1958, and "Construction and Geometry Painting" in 1959. In particular, he curated a major retrospective on Mondrian at the Musée de l'Orangerie also in 1959.
In 1954, Michel Seuphor acquired French citizenship. From that moment, his focus shifted more towards art history, particularly 20th-century abstract art. He produced fundamental texts such as "Abstract Art, Its Origins, Its First Masters" (1949), the "Dictionary of Abstract Painting" (1957), and "Sculpture of This Century" (1959). From 1971, he began publishing a five-volume history of abstract art, consolidating his role as an art historian and theorist.
Michel Seuphor passed away in Paris on February 12, 1999, leaving an immense legacy in the world of art, especially in abstract art, through his art, his publications, and his collaborations with other great artists of his time.