The Belgian artist Antoine Mortier was born in 1908 in Saint-Gilles. Mortier was a forerunner of the painting style, which is now called action painting. Antoine Mortier (1908-1999) was a member of the artist group Jeune Peinture Belge for a short time. After a figurative period, in which there was a relationship with Permeke, Antoine Mortier started to paint more and more abstractly, but he made no compromises: Mortier did what he wanted and for a long time made both figurative and purely abstract paintings. Mortier was a loner who didn't care about anyone. Mortier developed his personal style long before action painting became commonplace. In his expressive style, he simplified lines and color to the core, leaving only dark lines and transparent colors. The object, limited to sign, was stripped of any ornament. This gave his paintings a monumental character. Work in the Museums of Antwerp, Brussels, Ixelles, Ghent, Ostend (PMMK), The Hague, New York (Guggenheim), Buffalo (Albright Art Gallery) and Sao Paolo. The work comes from a private high-quality art collection.