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Belgian sculptor. After studying in Antwerp, he progressed from Expressionism to Art Informel, and went through a Neo-Surrealist phase, in 1950. By 1954 he sought an escape from painting by integrating objects and using a variety of materials in his work. His first reliefs were produced in 1960 and were made up of fragments of old frames and wooden laths blackened by burning. Shortly afterwards he began to make assemblages of mutated objects, investigating the possibilities of wood and extending his pictorial vocabulary by using parts of pianos, cupboards balustrades. After 1963, Gentils abandoned pure relief and executed works in which human forms and colour began to reappear. By mid-1970s, the strength of the colours was such that he seemed to be actually painting in three dimensions. He had a major retrospective in Lille on 1977-78.

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