James Ensor

James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor was born on 13 April 1860 and spent most of his life in Ostend, Belgium. He worked as a painter and printmaker, becoming associated with Les XX, an avant-garde artistic group. His work proved formative for two major movements that followed: expressionism and surrealism. He lived to 88, dying on 19 November 1949, having spent nearly nine decades in the same seaside town where his strange, masked visions first took shape.