Paul Comblen & l’Art nouveau — Musée Wittert, Liège, 10 October – 23 December 2026

Paul Comblen was born in Liège in 1869 and built, in 1901, the house that is still read as the manifesto of Liège Art Nouveau: his own. The Musée Wittert, the art collection of the University of Liège, has opened his archive — drawings, plans and photographs — in an exhibition made with GAR-Archives d’architecture, and set it beside works from its own holdings by three artists of the same city and the same years: Émile Berchmans, Richard Heintz and Auguste Donnay.

The route follows a career rather than a style. The private house of 1901 stands at one end; at the other, the university’s war memorial, a commission of a different century and a different temper. Between them is the material an architect leaves behind and a museum rarely shows: the sheets on which a façade was decided. The exhibition is curated by Dr Sébastien Charlier, scientific head of GAR-Archives d’architecture, and Thomas Moor, historian and head of the architecture unit of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. Guided tours and a lecture accompany it.

Practical details

• Dates: 10 October – 23 December 2026
• Opening hours: Monday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm (closed 11 November)
• Admission: free
• Where: Musée Wittert, Place du 20-Août 7, 4000 Liège, Belgium
• Organised by: Musée Wittert, Université de Liège, with GAR-Archives d’architecture
• Information: wittert.uliege.be

Cultural Heritage Online lists this exhibition for readers who follow Art Nouveau outside its two or three famous capitals. Liège built a great deal of it, and much of what it built is documented in archives like this one rather than in guidebooks.