E.L.T. Mesens
E.L.T. Mesens was a Belgian author, pianist, publisher, curator, visual artist and dealer associated with the Dada and Surrealist movements.
He was one of the founders of the surrealist movement in Belgium.
In 1920 he met René Magritte in Brussels at his exhibition at the Centre d'Art, organised by Pierre Bourgeois. In April 1921, he met Erik Satie, Man Ray and Marcel
Duchamp. In 1922, Mesens was seduced by the Dada movement and went back to Paris where he met Philippe Soupault, then Louis Aragon, André Breton and Paul Éluard.
According to Louis Scutenaire, it was at this time that Mesens showed Magritte a reproduction of Giorgio De Chirico's "Chant d'amour", which impressed the Belgian painter and determined his stylistic direction.
In 1924, Mesens contributed to the last issue of Francis Picabia's magazine 391 and produced his first collages and photomontages.
From then on, Mesens played a central role in the Belgian Surrealist group that had been formed, alongside Paul Nougé, Camille Goemans, Magritte, Marc Eemans,
Marcel Lecomte, André Souris and Louis Scutenaire.
In 1927, he ran the L'Époque gallery, exhibiting some of the most important works by Surrealist painters, from Magritte, of whom he presented twenty-three works in 1928,
to Max Ernst and Joan Miró.
After presenting an exhibition of Magritte, Man Ray and Tanguy at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1937, with a preface by Scutenaire, Mesens moved to London in 1938. There he directed the London Gallery, where he presented the works of the Surrealists, and founded the magazine London Bulletin, which appeared from 1938 to 1940 (twenty issues), contributing to the spread of Surrealism in the English-speaking world.