Edgard Tytgat
~ 1879 - 1957
Edgard Tytgat was a Belgium expressionist painter, cover artist and engraver. He combined expressionism with a poetic, sometimes dreamy style.
Tytgat spent his youth in Bruges, until the family moved to Brussels in 1888. After a failed attempt to become a clock-maker, he attended the Brussels Fine Arts Academy in 1897. As a young painter, he was influenced by the fauvism that had come to the city from Paris. This new tendency in art reached its peak between 1905 and 1907, and prepared the way for expressionism. Edgard Tytgat joined the Brabant fauvists, who were under the influence of impressionists and humanists and gathered around the figure of Rik Wouters.
During the First World War, he remained in exile in England. Gradually, he developed his own poetic style, in which he combined his own inspiration with expressionist influences. Besides being a painter, Edgard Tytgat was also an etcher and illustrator/lithographer. He was also an inspired leader of the Free Drawing Workshop in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, which grew out of a meeting place for graduates from higher institutes and art academies in Ixelles and Brussels. They painted together, discussed about art, and talked about each other’s work.
Huit dames et un monastère , his Most Intriguing and BDSM-Related Work
During the Second World War, in the final years of the German occupation of Belgium, Tytgat created his most remarkable and erotically charged body of work: Huit dames et un monastère (“Eight Ladies and a Monastery”).
This work, which was only published posthumously in 1974 in a limited edition by Laconti in Brussels, consists of a short, slightly absurd storyline accompanied by dozens of original illustrations (wash drawings, inks and lithographs). The story follows a young, naïve woman who ends up in a monastery, where eight mysterious women – named after figures from a deck of cards – organize bizarre and sensual “games”.The eight ladies bear strong resemblances to women from Tytgat’s own life (especially his aunts), giving the work a personal and almost voyeuristic character. While Tytgat is mainly known in his regular oeuvre for poetic, fairy-tale-like scenes, Huit dames et un monastère reveals a very different, darker and explicitly erotic side. There are clear elements of dominance, bondage, discipline and other BDSM themes, wrapped in a dreamlike, almost theatrical atmosphere.Tytgat is said to have devoted more than 500 works to this theme over a period of about five years.
Featured in gallery below:
- Huit dames et un monastère (1944)
3 albums/76 artworks
Latest Update: April 28, 2026 -> The complete collection for Huit dames et un monastère added, and a few loose artworks (40 artworks)
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