Alfred Courmes was a French painter born in 1898 in Bormes-les-Mimosas. He first moved to Paris in 1925, where he exhibited cubist paintings at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne. He later left France for Belgium and settled in Ostend, on the Belgian coast. There, he met James Ensor, Constant Permeke, and Félix Labisse, and was also deeply influenced by the rich heritage of Flemish painting, including the works of Jan van Eyck and Brueghel.

This collision of traditional painting with a surrealist and expressionist vision became a key reference point in Courmes' work. He often reinterpreted themes from mythology and Christian religion, infusing them with humor or sexual connotations, a bold approach that drew criticism. Nevertheless, the artist continued on this path. It was not uncommon to find modern elements—such as objects, clothing, or images from advertisements and tabloids—integrated into classical compositions from Antiquity or the Middle Ages. Courmes presented the viewer with absurd, comical, or even blasphemous anachronisms to provoke reflection.

In 1946, he exhibited alongside his friend René Magritte at the Surrealist Exhibition in Lille. In 1972, at the "12 Years of Contemporary Art" exhibition held at the National Gallery of the Grand Palais, he was recognized as a major influence on the younger generation of artists exhibiting with him and was awarded the Panique Prize. He was also featured in the "Mythologies Quotidiennes" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris in 1976 and the "Realisms Between Revolution and Reaction 1919-1939" exhibition at the Centre Georges-Pompidou.

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