Frans Hellens

In Modigliani's portrait, through the simple elegance of line and shape eliciting a startling real emotion, a glow that seems to come from within captures the viewer's attention, demonstrating why Modigliani, although dying destitute, is now considered a master. The subject of this portrait, Franz Hellens was a prolific Belgian novelist, poet and critic writing entirely in French, living in Paris from 1947 to 1971. He is known as one of the major figures in Belgian magic realism, fantastique quotidien, and as the unrelenting editor of Signaux de France et de Belgique, later Le Disque Vert. The only work of Hellens’ that has been translated into English is Mémoires d'Elseneur (Memoirs from Elsinore, 1954).