| | Pol Bury born 1922 Belgian kinetic artist, painter and film-maker, born in Haine-Saint-Pierre. After studying briefly at the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Mons 1938-9, he frequented the circle of Surrealist poets at La Louvière and was influenced by the paintings of Magritte and Tanguy. His own painting largely interrupted from 1940 to 1945. Represented in the Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme in Brussels 1945. Painted geometrical abstract pictures 1949-53 and was associated with the COBRA group 1949-51, but in 1953 started to make 'plans mobiles' of painted shapes which could be pivoted manually on their axis. First principal one-man exhibition at the Galerie Apollo, Brussels, 1953. Gave up painting in 1953 and experimented with various types of kinetic works, introducing motors in 1957 and making the parts move with an almost imperceptible but jerky slowness, and in a random way. Moved to France in 1961 (first Fontenay-aux-Roses, then Saulx-les-Chartreux), and since 1964 has frequently visited the USA. His later works also include cinetizations of photographs and engravings, a few large-scale sculptures such as '25 Tons of Columns' and several films. Lives in Paris. Published in: Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.87 |