TEFAF 2026: Maastricht

Under the title 'Private Spaces', Gallery Sofie Van de Velde explores the interior as a site of intimate introspection and social reflection. For TEFAF 2026, we bring together exceptional works by Belgian modernists James Ensor and Henri De Braekeleer in dialogue with the contemporary artist Felix De Clercq (b. 1997). At the heart of the presentation is Ensor’s early masterpiece Le Salon Bourgeois (1880), where the family home becomes a hall of mirrors—charged with symbolism, fantasy, and a sardonic critique of bourgeois respectability. De Braekeleer, by contrast, turns inward: his rooms are heavy with stillness, haunted by solitude and figures absorbed in quiet retreat. Felix De Clercq draws a poetic language from his everyday surroundings. Objects, friends, and visitors to his studio are rendered with a quiet intensity that echoes the sensibilities of his predecessors. Across a century, these three artists share a fascination for interiors—not just as spaces we inhabit, but as portals into the hidden landscapes of the mind.