Léon Spilliaert was a Belgian Symbolist artist whose haunting self-portraits and nocturnal seascapes place him among the most psychologically intense painters of the early 20th century. Largely self-taught and plagued by insomnia, he produced his most powerful works in the small hours of the night, wandering the beach at Ostend with pen and wash. His work anticipates Surrealism with its dreamlike emptiness and existential unease.
