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THE JAMES ENSOR HOUSE
Vlaanderenstraat 27 - 8400 Oostende.

Open during the Easter holidays and from June till September from 10 am till 12 am and from 2 pm till 5 pm. Also open in the weekends of the Christmas holiday season.

This museum does not contain any works by James Ensor. However, it is the house where he spent most of his productive years. Ensor inherited the house from his uncle who had a shell shop there. After a restoration in the 1960's the house was opened to the public. On the ground floor the shell shop has been reconstructed. On the first floor there is a documentation center and the second floor is occupied by the lounge workshop of James Ensor himself.  Reproductions of Ensor's paintings can be seen here.

THE PROVINCIAL MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
Romestraat 11 - 8400 Oostende.

Open daily from 10 am till 6 pm,  except on Tuesdays (Mondays in the summer).

This is one of the important Museums of Modern Art in Belgium. The collection offers an exquisite overview of the recent history of Belgian Art. The museum and its collection belong to the Province of West-Flanders.
The building itself is already remarkable. The museum is housed in a former department store built by Gaston Eysselinck. The style of the construction is reminiscent of Le Corbusier.The start of the collection by the Province of West-Flanders was in 1937. In the 1950's the collection was expanded, thanks to the efforts of Jozef Storme. In 1967 the museum already possessed about 120 works of art. Nowadays, the collection consists of more than 2.000 works. Not everything can be put on display because of lack of space.
The museum consists of the cellar department, the ground floor, and three higher floors with mezzanines. In the cellar as well as on the ground floor there is room for temporary expositions . Some of the important (Belgian) artists that are represented here are: Prosper de Troyer, Victor Servranckx, Jozef Peeters, Rene Magritte ('Le Forgeron' from 1920), the expressionists Albert Servaes, Georges Minne, Frits Van den Berghe, Gustaaf De Smet and Constant Permeke. Others are : Edgard Tytgat, Jean Brusselmans, Leon Spilliaert.   There is also a lot of attention for the more recent art developments (geometrical art, construtivism, New Painting, Hyperrealism, Pop Art, etc). Some names: Dan van Severen, Pierre Alechinsky, Jean Milo, Fred Bervoets, Pjeroo Roobjee, Pol Mara, Paul Van Hoeydonck, Vic Gentils and Panamarenko.

THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
Wapenplein - 8400 Oostende .

Open daily from 10am till 12am and from 2 pm till 5 pm, except on Tuesdays.

One of the founding fathers of this museum was Henri-Louis Permeke ( 1849 - 1912 , and father of the famous Belgian expressionist painter Constant Permeke). About 400 paintings of the museum were destroyed by war fire in 1940. After the Second World War a new collection was acquired which focused on painters from Oostende: James Ensor, Constant Permeke, Leon Spilliaert and Jan de Clerck.
Sections of the museum are: James Ensor paintings, Leon Spilliaert paintings, Belgian art from the Romantic movement until the Postimpressionist movement, important 19th and 20th century artists from Oostende, contemporary art from different European countries.

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