Charles Leirens


Charles Leirens was a Belgian photographer and musician.

Early life and career

Charles Leirens was born on March 4, 1888 in Ghent, Belgium where he undertook his primary and secondary education. Also in Ghent he received his musical education as a pianist and, at the age of 8, started giving concerts in public. He studied law at the University of Ghent for two years while also studying counterpoint and harmony and began to compose music. He married and lived in Brussels where he had a son.

Music

During the First World War Leirens worked for the Belgian services in London and in 1919 became the secretary of Fondation Universitaire, after which he abandoned musical composition. In 1928 he was the first Director-General of the Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and organized exhibitions, conferences, events, all considered very brilliant, but too expensive. He had had to leave the post, as the Palais was now consigning its activities to specialized auxiliary companies. By creating La Maison d’Art in December 1933 and initiating a vital program of concerts, lectures, exhibitions, Leirens had addressed those who perceived the Société Philharmonic, for example, as risk-averse and relying too exclusively on international superstars and populist works. During this period also, he founded, with Stanislas Dotremont and Jean Absil, the Revue Internationale de Musique, of which he was the first editor.

Portrait photography

In the course of his directorial work Leirens met great artists, writers and musicians, and following the example of prominent German photographers, was inspired to make photographic portraits of them, for which he used a Rolleiflex and first published them in 1936. Over his career subjects were to include Jacob Epstein, Roger Fry, August Vermeylen, Andre Gide, Colette, François Mauriac, James Ensor, Paul Valéry, Osip Zadkine, Aristide Maillol, Béla Bartók, Henry Moore, Marc Chagall, Gaby Casadesus, Jean Cocteau, Charles Leplae, Paul Delvaux, Andre Malraux, Gaston Bachelard, Eugène Ionesco, Franz Hellens, René Magritte

WW2 in America

With the outbreak of the Second World War, in 1940 Leirens was invited by the New School for Social Research, New York, to give courses in photography and musicology. On the way his ship was stopped at Trinidad resulting in a stay of eleven months, during which he devoted himself to music and photography, and held his first exhibition there.
From 1941 in New York at the Belgian Information Centre he gave courses and writes a books on Belgian music and on Belgian folklore, for the Centre and while there is influential on American photographer Erich Hartmann. From October 11 to 23, 1943 at Bignou Gallery an exhibition is held, and catalogue published, of his portraits of prominent Europeans
1945, the war over, he traveled to Puerto Rico, then Morocco, making photos that included one, in Morocco in 1948, of children playing house amongst stones they had arranged on the street. It was chosen by curator Edward Steichen for the world-touring Museum of Modern Art exhibition The Family of Man that was seen by 9 million visitors.

Return to Belgium

Returning to Belgium in 1952 Leirens married Virginia Haggard the daughter of a British diplomat, and previously the wife of painter John McNeill, whom Leirens met with Marc Chagall with whom she had lived for seven years, and mother of their son, the actor David McNeil ; within three months Chagall had married his housekeeper, Valentina Brodsky and the six-year old David went to live with his mother and step-father. During this time Leirens resided in Paris while also working in Belgium and made an extensive series of portraits of writers, artists and musicians for the Archives of the Ministry of Culture.
In 1954 Leirens health failed and he was an invalid for two years, nursed by his wife Virginia who also learned and maintained his photographic practice. Only gradually did he resume his actIve life, photographing his doctor Cauchoix in 1957. The following year he returned full-time to live in Brussels where he continued his concerts for the Maison d'Art as well as his photographic work, and mentoring his compatriot, the young Yves Auquier. He fell ill again in 1963 and died that year on April 11.

Exhibitions

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