Belgium

Famous Belgian People: Belgian Artists, Scientists, Leaders, Musicians, Politicians and Athletes

Belgium is home to outstanding individuals who made a difference with their remarkable achievements. The following people made their mark on both the local and international scenes. They are just some of many famous Belgians who have lifted Belgium’s name worldwide and made a difference in our world. Their purpose and stories inspired awe if not greatness.

:: List of Famous People from Belgium ::

Peter Paul Rubens
Peter Paul Rubens was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar, art collector, and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, King of Spain, and Charles I, King of England.

Jacques Brel
Jacques Romain Georges Brel was a Belgian singer-songwriter. Brel composed and recorded his songs almost exclusively in French, although he recorded a number of songs in Dutch.

Brel’s songs are not especially well known in the English-speaking world except in translation and through the interpretations of other singers, most famously Scott Walker and Judy Collins. Others who have sung his work in English include Karen Akers, Marc Almond, Momus/Nick Currie, Beirut, Bellowhead, David Bowie, Ray Charles, John Denver, The Dresden Dolls, Gavin Friday, Alex Harvey, Terry Jacks, Barb Jungr, The Kingston Trio, Jack Lukeman, Amanda McBroom, Rod McKuen, Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Spencer Moody, Camille O’Sullivan, Dax Riggs, Nina Simone, Frank Sinatra, Dusty Springfield, Andy Williams, Sandler and Young, Nirvana, Dave Van Ronk, Shirley Horn, Brian Molko and James Dean Bradfield. In French-speaking countries, Brel is also remembered as an actor and director.

Jacques Brel has sold over 25 million records worldwide, including over 12 million albums and singles in France and Belgium.

Audrey Hepburn
Born in Ixelles, Belgium, as Audrey Kathleen Ruston, famous British actress and humanitarian Audrey Hepburn spent her childhood chiefly in the Netherlands, including German-occupied Arnhem, Netherlands, during the Second World War. She studied ballet in Arnhem and then moved to London in 1948, where she continued to train in ballet and worked as a photographer’s model. She appeared in several European films before starring in the 1951 Broadway play Gigi. Hepburn played the lead female role in Roman Holiday (1953), winning an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for her performance. She also won a Tony Award for her performance in Ondine (1954). Hepburn is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award. She was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1961.

Hepburn became one of the most successful film actresses in the world and performed with notable leading men such as Gregory Peck, Rex Harrison, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Henry Fonda, William Holden, Burt Lancaster, Fred Astaire, James Garner, Peter O’Toole and Albert Finney. She won BAFTA Awards for her performances in The Nun’s Story (1959) and Charade (1963) and received Academy Award nominations for Sabrina (1954), The Nun’s Story (1959), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) and Wait Until Dark (1967).

She starred as Eliza Doolittle in the film version of My Fair Lady (1964), becoming only the third actor to receive $1,000,000 for a film role. From 1968 to 1975 she took a break from film-making to spend more time with her two sons. In 1976, she starred with Sean Connery in Robin and Marian. In 1989, she made her last film appearance in Steven Spielberg’s Always.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Pieter Bruegel the Elder was a Flemish Renaissance painter and printmaker known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (Genre Painting). He is sometimes referred to as “Peasant Bruegel” to distinguish him from other members of the Brueghel dynasty, but is also the one generally meant when the context does not make clear which “Bruegel” is being referred to. From 1559 he dropped the ‘h’ from his name and started signing his paintings as Bruegel.

Jan Brueghel the Elder
Jan Brueghel the Elder was a Flemish painter, son of Pieter Bruegel the Elder and father of Jan Brueghel the Younger. Nicknamed “Velvet” Brueghel, “Flower” Brueghel, and “Paradise” Brueghel, of which the latter two were derived from his floral still lifes which were his favored subjects, while the former may refer to the velveteen sheen of his colors or to his habit of wearing velvet.

Anthony van Dyck
Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of King Charles I of England and Scotland and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next 150 years. He also painted biblical and mythological subjects, displayed outstanding facility as a draftsman, and was an important innovator in watercolor and etching.

René Magritte
René Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images. His intended goal for his work was to challenge observers’ preconditioned perceptions of reality and force viewers to become hypersensitive to their surroundings.

Jean-Claude Van Damme
Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg, professionally known as Jean-Claude Van Damme, is a Belgian martial artist and actor. Van Damme is best known for his martial arts action movies. His most successful films include Bloodsport (1988), Kickboxer (1989), Double Impact (1991), Universal Soldier (1992), Hard Target (1993), Timecop (1994), and JCVD (2008). Due to his physique and his Belgian background, he is known as “The Muscles from Brussels.”

After studying martial arts intensively from the age of ten, Van Damme achieved national success in Belgium as a martial artist and bodybuilder, earning the “Mr. Belgium” bodybuilding title. He emigrated to the United States in 1982 to pursue a career in film, and achieved success with Bloodsport (1988), based on a story written by Frank Dux. He attained subsequent box office success with Timecop (1994), which grossed over $100 million worldwide and became his most financially successful film.

Hergé
Georges Prosper Remi, better known by the pen name Hergé, was a Belgian comic books writer and artist. “Hergé” is the French pronunciation of “RG”, his initials reversed. His best known and most substantial work is The Adventures of Tintin comic book series, which he wrote and illustrated from 1929 until his death in 1983, leaving the twenty-fourth Tintin adventure Tintin and Alph-Art unfinished. His work remains a strong influence on comics, particularly in Europe. He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2003. Hergé has become one of the most famous Belgians worldwide and Tintin is still an international success. Hergé’s work was heavily influenced by his involvement since his youth with Scouting. The long-awaited Hergé Museum was opened in Louvain-La-Neuve on 2 June 2009.

Peyo
Belgian comic books artist Pierre Culliford, also known as Peyo, was the creator of The Smurfs comic strip. The Smurfs secured their place in North American pop culture in 1981, when the Saturday-morning cartoon The Smurfs, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in association with SEPP International S.A., aired on NBC from 1981 to 1989. The show became a major success for NBC, spawning spin-off television specials on an almost yearly basis. The Smurfs was nominated multiple times for Daytime Emmy awards, and won Outstanding Children’s Entertainment Series in 1982–1983.