Théodore van Rysselberghe, the Belgian painter known as Théo, was born in Ghent in 1862. He studied art at the Academies in Ghent and Brussels, and in 1881 exhibited for the first time at the Salon in Brussels. After the success of the French Impressionists exhibition in Brussels in the early 1880s, van Rysselberghe began to explore their technique. In 1883 he became a co-founder of the avant-garde group of Brussels intellectuals,
Les-Vingt.
In 1886 the painter travelled with the poet Emile Verhaeren to Paris, where he met Georges Seurat (1859-1891) whose painting he admired, particularly
A Sunday Afternoon at the Island of Grande Jatte. Following his contact with Neo-Impressionists like Seurat, Signac, Cross and Pissarro in Paris, van Rysselberghe turned to Pointillism himself, becoming the main exponent of the style in Belgium and one of Belgium's most important artists of the fin-de-siecle period. In the late 1880s and early 1890s, the painter travelled in Spain, North Africa, the Middle East and Europe. In 1898, he moved from Brussels to Paris where he joined the literary Symbolist group.
After the death of Georges Seurat, van Rysselberghe gradually abandoned the Pointillist technique and turned to a more Realist style. He was famous for his portraits of poets and other literary figures and created an oeuvre of etchings and lithographs. He also designed some beautiful various posters for bookshops and art galleries. Van Rysselberghe and his wife, who was fondly known as Madame Théo, are said to have played an important role in the life of André Gide. Between 1905-1910, he settled in Saint Clair in Provence, where he primarily executed portraits of his wife as well as of his daughter Elisabeth.
Van Rysselberghe died on the 13th December 1926 in St. Clair.