Robert Detheux - 1977 - Surrealist Painting On Canvas "libidineuse"

Robert Detheux 1932-2010

Title: Libidineuse, 1977
Technique: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 80cm x 80cm

A belly, a navel, a fragment of flesh suspended in a gray mist.

Under Robert Detheux's brush, the body is no longer just anatomy: it becomes a symbol, a mystery, an apparition.

The surface of the canvas, streaked with scars and scratches, seems to carry the memory of time.

The soft, veiled shape of the belly contrasts with the roughness of the background, as if sensuality were born in the heart of the stone.

The title, Libidineuse, evokes desire, but a restrained, spectral, almost silent desire. Here, the flesh is both close and distant, intimate and foreign, sensual and disturbing. Detheux transforms a detail of the body into a universal icon, where eroticism mixes with enigma, and where each trace of matter tells a buried story. poetic.

Provenance
This work comes directly from Robert Detheux's studio collection, which remained hidden for several decades before its recent rediscovery. It is part of the artist's most accomplished period, marked by total artistic freedom and profound aesthetic coherence.

Biography of Robert Detheux
Robert Detheux (1935–2010) is a unique Belgian artist, whose work is part of the major post-war movements: surrealism, Dadaism, and lyrical abstraction. Born in Brussels, he trained in a rich artistic context, marked by the legacy of Magritte and Paul Nougé, but also by the influence of the Parisian avant-garde.

From an early age, he frequented Belgian intellectual and artistic circles, where writers, painters, and poets met. In his early years, Detheux gravitated toward expressive figurative painting, before exploring more experimental avenues in the 1960s: collages, assemblages, and mixed media. Close to the Dada and Surrealist spirit, he developed a visual language in which the absurd, dreams, and poetry blended with demanding artistic research.

From the 1970s onward, he embraced lyrical abstraction, marked by free gestures and vibrant textures, without ever renouncing his symbolic depth. He exhibited in several Belgian and European galleries, notably at the Galerie Isy Brachot in Brussels. His works are now featured in private and public collections, embodying the spirit of independence and freedom of post-war Belgian art. The recent rediscovery of his studio collection, containing more than 1,200 pieces, reveals the breadth and coherence of his work, and places Robert Detheux among the important figures of the 20th century artistic scene.