Rachel Baes

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Rachel Baes (1 August 1912–May 1983) was a Belgian surrealist painter.

Daughter of landscape painter and portraitist Émile Baes, Rachel Baes was born in Brussels. She had no formal artistic training, but began her career as an artist in 1929 when she exhibited works in Paris.

Baes was a member of the surrealist group around René Magritte and had contacts with André Breton, Jean Cocteau, Max Ernst, Georges Bataille, Irène Hamoir, and Paul Eluard.

Between 1936 and 1940, Baes had an affair with Joris Van Severen, leader of the extreme rightist Verdinaso party in Belgium. Van Severen was shot erroneously by French troops in 1940. Baes published an exculpatory biography of Van Severen—Joris Van Severen, une âme—in 1965, but without effect.

From 1961 she retired from public life and lived alone in Bruges. She was buried at Abbeville, alongside Van Severen.

[edit] References

Rachel Baes, Empreintes, l'Imprimerie des Sciences, Bruxelles, 1951, 80 pages
R. Baes, Joris Van Severen, Une Âme, Editions Oranje, Zulte, 1965, 90 pages
Patrick Spriet, Een Tragische Minnares (Rachel Baes, Joris Van Severen, Paul Léautaud en de surrealisten, Vanhalewijck, 2002, 328 pages
M. Janssens, P. Spriet, S. van Loo, J. Chénieux-Gendron en X. Canonne, Gekooid verlangen (Jane Graverol, Rachel Baes en het surrealisme ...), Gynaika/KMSKA, Antwerpen, 2002, 203 pages
Dupont, Pierre-Paul, "BAES Rachel (1912–1983)", in E. Gubin, C. Jacques, V. Piette & J. Puissant (eds), Dictionnaire des femmes belges: XIX^e et XX^e siècles. Bruxelles: Éditions Racine, 2006. ISBN 2-87386-434-6
Xavier Canonne, Het Surrealisme in België, 1924-2000 (Rachel Baes: 268-271), Mercatorfonds, Brussel, 2006, 350 pages