William P. Carl Fine Prints is pleased to represent the estate of Victor Delhez

Victor Delhez was born in Antwerp, one of seven children from a wealthy Antwerp family. From 1916-18 he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and from 1918-23 he was a student at the Faculty of Exact Sciences at the University of Louvain. He graduated as an agronomist with chemistry as his primary subject. He began exhibiting his caricatures and surrealist works on paper during this period. In addition, his first series of prints was published in Antwerp in 1925.

In 1925 Delhez's life changed. His parents were killed in a car crash so he gave up his job as manager of his father's motorcar company and decided to move to South America. In Buenos Aires, (1926-1933), he worked as a draughtsman, architect and contractor. While actively pursuing his engraving career he then decided to move to Bolivia. There, in conjunction with his friend Edgar Ernalsteen, he produced a first set of forty illustrations for the gospel and illustrated Lord Dunsady's "A Dreamer's Tale". During the late 1930s he continued refining his wood engraving technique and moved to Chacras de Coria, Argentina in 1940. His most famous work originated here and he became a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, National University of Cuyo. He lived in Chacras de Coria for the rest of his life. His days as the itinerant artist were over.

Since 1926, Delhez's work has been shown in innumerable print exhibitions and his work can be found in many museum collections including Brussels, Antwerp (Plantin-Moretus), the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian. His editions are remarkably small, normally only eight impressions per block. He signed the prints with the reference "epreuve d'artiste" signifying these impressions are from the edition of eight. His range of subjects include Dostoevsky, Baudelaire, the Dance of Death theme, architecture, Lord Dunsady's "A Dreamer's Tale," self portraiture and of course, the Bible. The series "Apocalypse" ('Book of Revelation') is a masterpiece of 20th century graphic art. This, along with "Architecture and Nostalgia," show the artist at his best: a technician, an architect, a dreamer, a poet, a comic and a thinker. We are pleased to offer these exceptional prints for sale to our clients.