Born in Brussels in 1904, Suzanne Fabry was the daughter of Symbolist painter Émile Fabry. During World War I, her family relocated to England, first to Herefordshire and then to Saint-Ives, before returning to Belgium after the war. In 1923, she trained at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts under Jean Delville and Constant Montald. Alongside her father, the two artists co-founded the group L’Art Monumental, which focused on creating thought-provoking public art.
Fabry began exhibiting her work in the 1930s at the triennial Salon in Antwerp and at the quadrennial Salon in Liège. During this time, her father worked on large-scale projects for La Monnaie, Brussels’ Opera House, where she and her husband, Edmond Delescluze, later served as costume and set designers. She led the opera’s costume workshop until her death in 1985, showcasing her lifelong commitment to her art. Although not a Symbolist painter like her father, her lyrical and dreamlike sensibility is evident in her portraits, with self-portraiture becoming a central theme.
Our striking Self-portrait exemplifies this blend of emotional expression and physicality: her muscular, androgynous figure with elongated, mannerist limbs reminiscent of Michelangelo’s only sculpted female nude, Dawn, is exacerbated by her confident, penetrating gaze. By representing herself as both youthful and powerful, Fabry highlights her nuanced understanding of the kaleidoscopic nature of femininity. As testified by the two labels glued at the back of the stretcher, our Self-portrait was exhibited at the Salon de Printemps at the Société des Beaux-Arts in 1940, as well as at the Exposition d’Art de Woluwé-Saint-Pierre in Belgium, under the title Torse.