Opus 17-1922
Taking as his basis the influence of Cubism and Constructivism, the Belgian abstract painter Victor Servranckx developed a highly personal geometric style close to the purism of Ozenfant and Le Corbusier. His painting, executed with a geometrical precision that brings to mind the aesthetic of machines and coincides with certain of Léger’s tubular forms, is magnificently represented by the present canvas in the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection. Dated in 1922 and entitled Opus 17–1922, it is described by M. Bochow-Goltz as a pictorial equivalent of modern technology and architecture on account of its cold and exact rationality.
The work was first published in 1924 in an article in the magazine L’Esprit Nouveau marking the exhibition of the artist’s work organised by Léonce Rosenberg at L’Effort Moderne gallery in Paris that year.
Paloma Alarcó