Full Name: Fierens, Paul
Gender: male
Date Born: 1895
Date Died: 1957
Place Born: Paris, Île-de-France, France
Place Died: Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium
Home Country/ies: France
Subject Area(s): aesthetics and Modern (style or period)
Career(s): art critics and curators
Overview
Chief Curator of the Royal Museums of Fine Art in Brussels; professor of aesthetics and the history of modern art at Liège University; art critic and poet. Fierens was born in Paris of Belgian parents, the art historian Hippolyte Fierens-Gevaert and Jacqueline Marthe Gevaert. The family moved to Belgium in 1902. Fierens attended high school at the Collège Saint-Michel in Brussels and he studied philosophy and classics in Brussels at the Institut St. Louis, where he graduated as bachelor in 1914. After World War I he enrolled at the Free University of Brussels to study law, where he obtained his doctoral degree in 1921. In that year he returned to Paris and joined the editorial staff of the Journal des Débats, where his father also began his career. In addition he was a contributor to French and foreign journals, such as Nouvelles littéraires, La Nouvelle Revue française, The Art News, and Der Cicerone. Upon his father’s death, in 1926, Fierens obtained a teaching position at the Institut supérieur d’Histoire de l’Art et d’Archéologie at Liège University, teaching aesthetics and modern art. However, he continued to live in cosmopolitan Paris until 1934, where famous writers, musicians, and painters, including Marc Chagall and Georges Braque, were among his friends. In 1929, he published La maturité de l’art flamand, as the third volume of a multi-volume work, Histoire de la peinture flamande des origines à la fin du XVe siècle, the first two volumes of which had been written by his father and were posthumously published (1927-1929). In addition to his position at Liège University, Fierens taught at the Institut supérieur d’Histoire de l’Art et d’Archéologie, housed in the Brussels Museums of Fine Arts; at the Chapelle musicale Reine Élisabeth; at the École du Louvre in Paris; and at the universities of Montpellier and Aix-en-Provence. An elaborate study on the paintings of the 17th-century French brothers Antoine, Louis and Mathieu Le Nain appeared in 1933. Fierens identified and cataloged the oeuvre of each of the brothers separately. In the same year he published L’art hollandais contemporain (Dutch contemporary art). In 1934, he moved to Brussels. In 1936, he was appointed professor at Liège University. Between 1938 and 1942, Fierens published a two-volume study on Flemish painting, from the beginnings until the 18th century, La peinture flamande. At the same time, he was the editor and one of the authors of L’art en Belgique du moyen âge à nos jours, an overview of Belgian art from the Middle Ages up to the twentieth century (1939). His own contribution to this book dealt with modern and contemporary art. More publications on Dutch and Flemish art followed. In 1945, Fierens was appointed curator of the Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels, replacing Arthur Laes (1876-1959), and two years later chief curator, as the successor of Léo Van Puyvelde. Between 1919 and 1926, Fierens’ father had held the same position in the Brussels museum. Fierens was a well-known and highly appreciated personality in the museum world. He served as president of the International Association of Art Critics, from its foundation in 1950. He also headed the Belgian Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). In 1953 he became secretary to the Executive Council of this institution. Fierens died at the age of 61 in 1957.
Selected Bibliography
[list of publications before 1936:] Halkin, Léon (ed.) Liber Memorialis. L’Université de Liége. De 1867 à 1935. Notices biographiques. 1. Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres. Faculté de Droit. Liège: Rectorat de l’Université, 1936, pp. 569-572; Van Dongen, l’homme et l’ouvre. Paris: Les Écrivains réunis, 1927; Henry Parayre. Paris: Les Écrivains réunis, 1928; James Ensor. Paris: G. Crès, 1929; Marc Chagall. Paris: G. Crès, 1929; Permeke. Paris: G. Crès, 1929; and Fierens-Gevaert. La maturité de l’art flamand. volume 3 of Histoire de la peinture flamande des origines à la fin du XVe siècle. Paris: Les Éditions G. van Oest, 1929; Choix de cinquante dessins de Rembrandt van Rijn. Paris: Braun, 1929; Marcel Gimond. Paris: Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue française, 1930; Jean van Eyck. Paris: G. Crès, 1931; Survage. Paris: Éditions des Quatre Chemins, 1931; Rubens. Paris: G. Crès, 1931; Joseph Stevens. Brussels: Éditions des Cahiers de Belgique, 1931; Hermann Hubacher. Paris: Éditions des Quatre Chemins, 1932; Les Le Nain. Paris: Floury, 1933; Sculpteurs d’aujourd’hui. Paris: Éditions des Chroniques du jour, exclusivité M.L.F., 1933; L’art hollandais contemporain. Paris: Éditions Le Triangle, 1933; Martin Lauterberg. Paris: Éditions des Quatre Chemins, 1933; Wilhelm Thöny. Paris: Éditions des Chroniques du jour, 1933; Rembrandt. Paris: Braun, 1934; Dessins de la vie juive. Paris, Éditions Le Triangle, 1934; Max Band. Paris: Éditions des Quatre Chemins, 1935; Memlinc. Paris: Braun, 1935; Theo van Rysselberghe. Brussels: Éditions de la Connaissance, 1937; La peinture flamande. vol. 1. Des origines à Quentin Metsys. vol. 2. De Bruegel au XVIIIe siècle. Paris: Les Éditions d’art et d’histoire, 1938-1942; Lasar Segall. Paris: Éditions des Chroniques du jour, 1938; ed. L’art en Belgique du moyen âge à nos jours. Brussels: La Renaissance du livre, 1939; Peinture flamande des origines à 1550. Paris: Braun, 1940; Peinture flamande de 1550 à 1800. Paris: Braun, 1940; Peinture hollandaise. Paris: Braun, 1940; Chaires et confessionnaux baroques. Brussels: Éditions du Cercle d’art, 1943; L’art flamand. Paris: Larousse, 1945; Les grandes étapes de l’esthétique. Brussels: Éditions Formes, 1945; Bruegel l’ancien. Paris: Éditions du Chêne, 1946; Le fantastique dans l’art flamand. Brussels: Éditions du Cercle d’art, 1947; Van Gogh. Paris: Braun, 1947; Trois sculpteurs belges: Charles Leplae, Georges Grard, Pierre Caille. Brussels: Éditions de la Connaissance, 1949; Faut-il nettoyer les tableaux anciens? Brussels: Ad. Goemaere, 1949; Chefs-d’Åuvre des Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique. Brussels: Éditions de la Connaissance, 1950; Pierre Caille. Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1950; Jan Vermeer de Delft, 1632-1675. Paris: Braun, 1952; H.V. Wolvens. Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1953; Antoine Mortier. Brussels: Elsevier, 1956; Musées royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique. Catalogue de la peinture ancienne. Brussels: Éditions de la Connaissance, 1957.
Sources
Halkin, Léon (ed.) Liber Memorialis. L’Université de Liége. De 1867 à 1935. Notices biographiques. 1. Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres. Faculté de Droit. Liège: Rectorat de l’Université, 1936, pp. 569-572; “Paul Fierens, conservateur en chef.” Arts, Beaux-Arts, Littérature, Spectacles (October 31 1947): 1; Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, pp. 196, 253, 499, 502; Devillez, Virginie. “Paul Fierens conservateur en chef (1947-1957).” Les Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique: Deux siècles d’histoire. Brussels: Dexia Banque et Racine, 2003, 1, pp 370-374; [obituaries :] F.C. Legrand “Paul Fierens” Burlington Magazine 99 (July 1957): 241-242; Gazette des Beaux-Arts 49 (May-June 1957): suppl. 16 ; J[anson], Cl. “In memoriam Paul Fierens.” Bulletin Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique/Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België 6, no. 1 (1957): 3-4.
Contributors: Monique Daniels