%0 Thesis
%9 Doctoral
%A Naylor, D.
%B Faculty of Arts and Humanities
%D 1980
%F discovery:1317711
%I University of London
%P 328
%T E.L.T. Mesens: his contribution to the Dada and Surrealist movements in Belgium and England as artist, poet and dealer
%U https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1317711/
%X The aim of this thesis is to provide a survey of E.L.T  Mesens' activities within the Dada and Surrealist movements and an  initial assessment of his work.  The thesis outlines Mesens' career and considers his work  as an organiser and polemicist of the Dada and Surrealist movements in  Belgium and the Surrealist movement in England. The period in which  Mesens initiated Dada activities in Brussels and developed important  contacts with Paris, though brief, affected his whole outlook on art and  poetry. The development of Dada and the work of a number of  European Dadaists whose work influenced Mesens' own development and  the Dada movement in Antwerp and Brussels is discussed. Differences  emerged between the theory and practice of Surrealism in Paris and  Brussels and the thesis considers the diverging development of  Surrealism in each of these centres. Mesens' involvement in the  Surrealist movement in Belgium is examined and his theoretical position  is appraised. The thesis also briefly outlines late nineteenth and early  twentieth century art movements in Belgium, in particular Symbolism  and Expressionism, in order that the Dada and Surrealist movements may  be seen in context.  Mesens' main efforts were concentrated in his work as  an art dealer in Brussels and London, where he promoted the work of  Dada and Surrealist artists in particular. From 1954 onwards, however,  he turned to the making of collage, a medium which he hod already  explored during the 1920's. The thesis will provide an examination of  Mesens' work as an art dealer in Belgium between 1928 and 1938, and in England between 1938 and 1950. It will provide an analysis of  Mesens' poetry, mostly written between 1923 and 1940, and his collages  both of the early period in the 1920's, and later from 1954 until his  death in April 1971.
%Z Thesis digitised by British Library EThOS