Born in Antwerp, Fernand Berckelaers adopted the pseudonym 'Seuphor', an anagram for Orpheus, in 1917. During his long career as a writer, poet, art critic and artist, Seuphor made an important contribution to art history. From 1922 onwards Seuphor moved at the heart of the European avant-garde in Berlin, Rome, Amsterdam and Paris and frequented the pioneers of Cubism, Dada, Futurism, Constructivism and Neo-Plasticism including Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Piet Mondrian, Fernand Léger, Albert Gleizes, Jean Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Herwarth Walden, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Gino Severini and Joaquin Torrès-Garcia. As a critic and writer, Seuphor left an important bibliography, including: 'L'Art Abstrait, Ses Origines, Ses Premiers Maîtres' (1948), 'Piet Mondrian: Life and Work' (1956) and 'La Peinture Abstraite en Flandre' (1963). As an artist Seuphor is credited with the invention of the so-called 'dessin à lacunes', drawings or collages in which abstract forms are created by the empty spaces between the lines.