An Expressionist before the term was coined, James Ensor (1860-1949) was the classic insider-outsider enigma. He knew all the right art-world figures but loathed most of them. His style lurched from the Gothic fantastical to the Christian visionary. He was a cosmopolitan trailblazer of modernism, but lived reclusively in an attic room in the resort town of Ostend.
For all his elusiveness, Ensor influenced generations of...