Frieze Masters 2026

In this monumental nude, Suzanne Fabry adopts the guise of the goddess Artemis, presenting herself not as huntress but as protector. Painted in Brussels in 1942, the work belongs to the most assured phase of her career, when her classical language, shaped by her training under Jean Delville and Constant Montald, had resolved into a style of restrained monumentality and idealised form.

Fabry shows herself as the goddess seated on a rocky outcrop, her body athletic and poised. Her arms encircle a fawn, held close and protected, while the animal stands alert. Artemis is both watchful and protective. Her head turns to the left into the distance, her hair lifted by the wind, her bearing proud and defiant. The flat, earthy yellow background, built from sienna and ochre, gives the painting a deliberately unreal, dreamlike quality.

The handling is notably varied. The broader composition is worked with a loose, fluid touch, particularly in the ground and surrounding forms, while the physiognomy of Artemis, Fabry’s own likeness, is treated with greater precision. The face is more carefully resolved and draws the focus of the composition, anchoring its meaning. This distinction reinforces the painting’s self-referential nature, as the mythological figure becomes a vehicle for a direct statement about the artist’s identity and position.

The choice of Artemis is exact. Long shaped for a male viewer, the female nude is here reclaimed as an image of self-definition. Fabry does not depict the goddess; she assumes her role. The fawn shifts the emphasis away from the hunt often associated with Artemis towards care and protection, reinforcing a calm and deliberate sense of control in the context of wartime Brussels. Painted during the turmoil of the 1940s, the work is not escapist but declarative. Through classical form and personal symbolism, Fabry sets out a self-image that is independent, self-possessed and enduring, and asserts a distinct position within the art world of her time.

The work was exhibited at the Salon de Printemps in 1942, lent by its then owner, indicating that it was recognised early within Fabry’s oeuvre. It appears to have been extended along the lower edge, with the signature and date added in 1943, suggesting a moment of revision or completion within the artist’s studio, possibly shortly after the exhibition.

MSK Ghent has requested this work for loan for Queer Belgian Art 1400–1950 (2027), the first exhibition to examine five centuries of art from the Southern Netherlands through an LGBTQIA+ lens.