Xavier Mellery

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L'Éternité et la Mort

Xavier Mellery (born August 9, 1845 in Laeken , † February 4, 1921 in Brussels ) was a Belgian painter of symbolism .

He was born to a Flemish father and a Walloon mother.

Mellery studied from 1860 to 1867 at the Académie royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles with Jean-François Portaels .

In 1870 he was awarded a Belgian Rome Prize. In 1871 he went on a study trip to Italy and visited Germany on the way . He stayed in Italy until 1874, then visited the country again in 1878. In 1872 he was awarded the Belgian Academy Prize. He spent the years 1878 and 1879 on the Dutch island of Marken . The life among the common people left a deep influence on his further work, u. a. on illustrations to the work of Charles de Coster .

He was invited several times to the annual salons of the “Groupe des Vingt” (or Les XX), an avant-garde group of artists founded in Brussels in 1883 by Octave Maus (1856–1919).

As a founding member of the group “Pour l'Art” (1892) he exhibited in the salons of “La Libre Esthétique” (Brussels, 1894) and “L'Art contemporain” (Antwerp, 1909). In 1882 he created a series of forty-eight statuette designs depicting the craft on the Place du Petit Sablon in Brussels.

In 1887 he traveled through Germany , the Czech Republic and Slovakia , Tyrol and Switzerland to study the graffiti technique that he used in a frieze for decorating the ground floor of the former Palace of Fine Arts (now the Museum of Ancient Art) wanted, but which was never realized.

He also designed numerous diplomas, posters and illustrations. For the illustration of Camille Lemonnier's book “La Belgique” he traveled through the country with Constantin Meunier .

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personal data
SURNAME Mellery, Xavier
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian painter of symbolism
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1845
PLACE OF BIRTH Laeken
DATE OF DEATH February 4, 1921
Place of death Brussels