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Dutchman Abraham van den Bogaert had himself naturalized as a Belgian in 1969. Under the pseudonym Bram Bogart, the painter, sculptor, graphic artist and ceramist gained fame from the 1970s onward with predominantly monochromatic matière works in which he explored the boundary between painting and sculpture. As early as the 1950s and 1960s, however, the self-taught Bogart was part of a postwar avant-garde that - in the aftermath of World War II - was searching for a new art. Because of his prolonged stay in Paris, Bogart's early work leans closely to informal art, a European renewal movement that - like American action painting - focuses on the expressive power of spontaneous working methods.