The painter Jo Delahaut is one of the pivotal figures of the geometric abstraction in Belgium. He does his training at the Liège academy where he also obtains a doctorate in the history of Art (1939). During World War II his work is still figurative. After an exhibition in Charleroi (1942), he makes his first abstract works. Within the group La Jeune Peinture Belge, in 1947 he is the only representative of abstract art. In 1946, he becomes a member of Réalitiés Nouvelles in Paris. Under the influence of the work by Auguste Herbin, he evolves more and more towards the geometric abstraction. In 1952, he establishes Art Abstrait along with Pol Bury, Jean Milo, Georges Collignon and Albert Saverys, among others. Subsequently, Delahaut establishes Art abstrait-Formes (1956) and Art Construit (1960). With Bury, he writes the manifesto La Spatialisme in 1954. One of his last major retrospective exhibitions is held in the Musée d’Art wallon in 1990.
Source: House of Literature, Antwerp
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