Floris Jespers (1889–1965)
was a Belgian
Avant-garde painter.
After his graduation from the Antwerp Academy of Fine Arts, he
hooked up with the poet
Paul Van
Ostaijen and joined the Antwerp avant-garde movement of the
1920s. He contributed to the publications
Ça Ira,
Le Centaure and
Sélection and befriended
Jean
Metzinger and
Albert Gleizes when
they published
Du Cubisme. In 1921 he had an exhibition
abroad for the first time (the exhibition of the Dutch artistic
group De Branding with
Kurt
Schwitters and Fokko Mees). In 1925 he became a member of
Contemporary Art (Kunst van Heden).
He travelled to
Belgian Congo for the
first time in 1951.
He stayed in the city of Kamina
where his
son Mark worked as a doctor. The journey was a revelation
for him. He translated his impressions of African women into
colorful
frescoes. The African paintings of
Jespers are not genre scenes but they present a greater vision of
Africa.
From the mysterious gazes and the faces of
the Swimmers painted in Ostend
in 1927 and
the Congolese women of the fifties the same idealised vision of the
untouchable and enigmatic African woman emerges.
He also used the
verre
églomisé technique.