Happy birthday to the Belgian painter Paul Delvaux, #bornonthisday in 1897. . Delvaux has long been considered a surrealist, although his association with the movement was brief. He painted dream-like and often quite strange scenes of women, trains, skeletons and architecture. . In November 1944, Lee Miller – working her way across Europe as Vogue’s war correspondent – arrived in Brussels. She wrote, ‘We landed just in time to see a buzz bomb pass by, its flaming tail melted into the colour of the sunset.’ . Lee couldn’t resist the opportunity to look up her ‘favourite modern painters’, Rene Magritte and Paul Delvaux. She writes of the Delvaux’s often bleak wartime work, ‘These last months of occupation and invasion have inspired him to paint prisoners and skeletons – the latter are pale, greeny pictures, more disturbing than gruesome. The Germans didn’t allow him to exhibit although they made no attempt to stop him from painting or selling to the Belgians.’ . Prints of this image are available to purchase on our website www.leemiller.co.uk (link in bio). Discover more about the people Lee Miller encountered by subscribing to our LoveLee membership. Visit www/patreon.com/leemillerarchives to join! . . . Image: Paul Delvaux, Brussels, Belgium, 1944 by Lee Miller © Lee Miller Archives, England 2022. All rights reserved. www.leemiller.co.uk . . . . . #leemiller #leemillerarchives #femalephotographer #blackandwhite #blackandwhitephotography #noiretblanc #noiretblancphotographe #fotographia #fotografo #fotographie