Philippe Robert-Jones
Belgian poet, curator, university professor, historian of modern age and art critic

Philippe Robert-Jones

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Biography

Introduction

Baron Philippe Roberts-Jones (8 November 1924 – 9 August 2016) was a Belgian art historian who was the head of conservation of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. A member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium, of which he was president in 1980, he was also a member of the Free Academy of Belgium and professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles. He was also a published poet.

Biography

Born in Ixelles, Belgium, on 8 November 1924, Philippe Roberts-Jones belongs to a family of three generations of lawyers, descending from a British family established in Brussels at the beginning of the 19th century and that has been active in the coachwork industry.

His father Robert Roberts-Jones (1893–1943), a lawyer, was a member of the Belgian Resistance executed by the Germans at the Tir national on October 20, 1943.

Philippe Roberts-Jones died on 9 August 2016 at the age of 91.

Prizes

  • Prix Émile Polak from the Belgian Royal Academy of French Language and Literature, 1957, for Amour et autres visages
  • Prix Malherbe of the Province of Brabant, 1976, for L'Art Majeur
  • Prix du rayonnement de la langue française, from the Académie française, 1980, for his collected output
  • Grand prix de poésie de l'Académie française, 1985
  • Prix Louis-Guillaume for prose poetry, 2002, for Domaines en cours
  • Grand prix international Lucian Blaga, 2006

Distinctions

Robert-Jones was made a Baron by King Baudouin in 1988.

Belgium
  • Grand Cross of the Order of the Crown
  • Grand Officer of the Order of Leopold
  • Volunteers' Medal for War
  • Commemorative Medal of the 1940–1945 War, with sabres
  • Civic Medal, first class
France
  • Commandeur of the Légion d'honneur
  • Commandeur of the ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Spain
  • Commander of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
Italy
  • Commander of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Italy
Finland
  • Grand Officer of the Order of the Lion of Finland

Work

As a poet he publishes under the name Philippe Jones.Among his published works are:

  • Le Voyageur de la nuit
  • Amours et autres visages
  • Être selon
  • Racine ouverte
  • Un espace renoué

As an art historian, he is interested in the workof Honoré Daumier and in contemporary engraving; another field of interest is the work of Belgian painter Lismonde.