James Ensor House

James Ensor is Ostend’s most famous son, the painter of masks, skeletons and carnival crowds who helped open the door to Expressionism. He lived and worked in this house a few streets back from the promenade from 1917 until his death in 1949, having inherited it from his uncle, who ran a souvenir and shell shop on the ground floor.

The house has been kept much as he left it, including the blue salon where he painted and received visitors. Next door, a visitor centre opened in 2020 takes you through his life and work in five rooms, with animated paintings, his letters, photographs and some of the masks that crowd his canvases. Two original works hang in the house: Débris and an early view of Fort Wellington.

It is a compact, well-designed museum: plan on an hour. Visits run in timed slots, so book online, especially at weekends and in the holidays. From 8 October 2026 to 10 January 2027 a temporary exhibition pairs Ensor with his fellow Ostend painter Léon Spilliaert, worth seeing alongside Mu.ZEE.