5 Rue des Francs — 1040 Brussels
tel./fax : 32 (0)2 733 86 84
info@cauchie.be
A visit to the House: the Gallery and the Ground Floor
The restoration work carried out over nearly fifteen years breathed new life into the building. It is now open to visitors who appreciate its message of beauty.
The Ground Floor
The successive ground floor rooms each have their own particularities and their content of symbolism. Decorative designs and furniture of the time demonstrate the manifest influence of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (Glasgow School of Art).
The upper storeys of the house, where there is no evidence of Paul or Lina’s talents, have been used as apartments and renovated to suit modern contemporary use.
The Gallery
The basement, cellar, and artist workshop have been redesigned into a vast gallery to exhibit Paul and Lina Cauchie’s paintings collected by the current owners over time.
After the First World War, when Art Nouveau gave way to Art Deco which no longer made use of the pictorial ornamentation of sgraffiti, Paul started to paint again. The works brought together in the gallery bear witness of the multiple facets of his talent. He is successful in all the trends of that era. These range from pointillism to expressionism, via fauvism, and he delights us with his style and colours.
As for Lina, even though she also participated in her husband’s activities, she loved to paint and did so until a well-advanced age. She was an excellent portrait painter, and she has left us numerous paintings of her daughter Suzanne but also still lifes, life drawings.
Original photos and documents retrace all of their creative activities. Glass display cabinets also show exhibits of correspondence exchanged between Hergé and Guy Dessicy. These documents illustrate Hergé’s interest in the Tintin museum project.
Other photographic evidence illustrates the restoration work performed by the current owners. It is thanks to their vigilance and the love for the Cauchie House, a prime example of Art Nouveau heritage, that the house has been revived.