Set all at 2col

1 Claus

Emile Claus, “Daisies,” 1897, oil on canvas 19¾ by 30 inches, The Simon Collection.

2 Van Ryss…

Théo Van Rysselberghe, “Portrait of Claire Demolder,” 1902, oil on canvas, 38 by 50 inches, The Simon Collection.

7-Delvaux

Paul Delvaux, “The Conversation,” 1944, oil on cardboard, 19½ by 24 inches, The Simon Collection. ©2006 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SABAM, Brussels.

Revised for date

MODERN BELGIAN ART AT MCMULLEN MUSEUM w/3 cuts

avv/gs set 1-30 #686372

CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. — The McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College is presenting “A New Key: Modern Belgian Art from the Simon Collection.” The exhibition comprises 53 works of art, most in their first North American display. This is also the first time that this selection of works has been displayed together as a group. The exhibition will remain on view through July 22.

The Simon Collection, housed in London and France, is the most comprehensive collection of modern Belgian art outside Belgium. This exhibition includes important paintings by René Magritte, James Ensor, Frits van den Berghe, Paul Delvaux, Theo van Rysselberghe, Constant Permeke, Emile Claus, Leon Spilliaert and Gustave de Smet.

According to organizers, modernist scholarship has focused on Paris, Berlin, Moscow and New York as the centers of modern art. This exhibition challenges the canon by examining Belgium. It reveals how the history of modern art looks different when viewed from the vantage point of this “marginal” center — hence the exhibition title, “A New Key.”

“This exhibition provides the exceptional opportunity to present a most well-chosen and well-considered collection of modern Belgian art for investigation by the leading scholars of the field in North America today,” said Nancy Netzer, McMullen Museum director and professor of art history. “The results are groundbreaking, providing a new key to expanding our concept of modernisms at the end of the Nineteenth and beginning of the Twentieth Century.”

The exhibition provides a sampling that epitomizes the accomplishments of Belgian artists from the late Nineteenth Century to World War II. During this period, which defined Modernism, Belgium was transformed by artistic breakthroughs and cataclysmic political and social upheavals. American audiences have had few opportunities to see Belgian art of this era, and many of the artists featured in the exhibition are rarely displayed in the United States.

The exhibition comprises 48 paintings, one drawing and four sculptures, which were chosen from a large collection to exemplify the national character of Belgian art. As a group, they tell the story of Belgian artistic vision, doubt and perseverance through the six themes in which they are grouped in the exhibition: Looking Outward: Landscape and Village Scenes; Works and Labor; The View from Within: Interiors and Still life; The Human Dimension; The Figure; The Impact of the First World War; The Fantastic and Carnivalesque.

The exhibition explores how each of these themes reveals questions of meaning and identity that haunted Belgian artists during this period. Belgium has an unusually complicated history, and it often seems impossible to separate historical facts from ideology and national myths, according to organizers. But they note that “works of art may provide and ideal model for the nature of historical interpretation, because of the importance subjective factors.”

The Simon collection has been acknowledged by scholars to be the finest collection of modern Belgian art outside Belgium. The collection was formed over the last 30 years by Henry and Françoise Simon, who focused their collecting entirely on Belgian art.

A fully illustrated catalog edited by the exhibitions curator will accompany the exhibition.

The Museum is in Devlin Hall on Boston College’s Chestnut Hill campus, at 140 Commonwealth Avenue. For information, 617-552-8100 or www.bc.edu/artmuseum.