Zéphir Busine, Designer

(c) Image Cover Zéphir Busine, Glasses, Boussu factory, 1960, photo G. Vercheval. BCulture Press kit

From March 31 to August 27, 2023, the Design Museum Brussels presents the exhibition Zephir Busine, Designer., a monograph dedicated to Zéphir Busine (1916 – 1976). A painter of lyrical abstraction, he was also a designer, illustrating himself in worlds as varied as glassware, furniture, stained glass, liturgical objects and even tapestry.

If Zéphir Busine and his pictorial works have their place in many collections in Belgium, both museum and private, his multidisciplinary work remains too often unknown. Honoring this type of creative profile is one of the ambitions of the Design Museum Brussels, one of whose missions is to participate in writing and promoting the history of design in Belgium.

This story would no doubt remain incomplete without Zéphir Busine, whose grandson Sylvain Busine, curator of the exhibition, rummaged through the studio and the boxes of this grandfather whom he did not know. Himself a designer and professor at La Cambre, Sylvain Busine has gone back to school to put the spotlight on the many facets of this chameleon who, out of discretion, has kept a multidisciplinary talent secret.

The exhibition, both thematic and chronological, will present his work as a designer and decorative artist. Among the highlights, we note the passage of Zéphir Busine by the Verreries de Boussu. There, he gave life to around twenty series with pure and timeless lines that are reminiscent of the Scandinavian touch. We also note his collaboration with the architect Jacques Dupuis in the creation of exceptional pieces of furniture and the imprint left at Expo 58. A book, the fruit of Sylvain Busine's studies and research, is published on this occasion. .