Armand Rassenfosse

1862–1934, Liège

Armand Rassenfosse, one of the leading representatives of Belgian Art Nouveau, was active as a painter, printmaker and book illustrator. Born into a family of art dealers, he collected old and contemporary prints and was largely self-educated. From 1886 he was a close friend and collaborator of Félicien Rops, who was thirty years his elder. Their joint interest in printmaking techniques led them to develop their own variant of vernis mou which they called “Ropsenfosse”. It was not until after 1900 that the artist increasingly turned his attention to painting.