Paul Delvaux (born 23 September 1897, died 20 July 1994) was a Belgian surrealist painter.
After having painted as a post-impressionist, then as an expressionist, he painted his first surrealist works around 1935, under the influence of another Belgian, Rene Magritte.
Almost all of Delvaux's works from that date portray nude or semi-nude women, usually in a classical piazza or in the streets of a provincial town. Sometimes the painting includes a fully-clothed man looking at the nude women, who ignore him. Thus Delvaux's themes include sexual voyeurism and narcissism.
Delvaux's paintings belong to the realist branch of surrealism, which had its beginnings in the works of Giorgio de Chirico. He uses de Chirico's deep-perspective space as a setting for the incongruous scene of a man raising his hat to a partially draped woman in “The Encounter” (1938; Museum of Modern Art, New York City). Delvaux's imagery here - as distinct from the setting - is derived from Magritte but is less startling. Delvaux's work was exhibited with that of the surrealists, although he never formally became a member of the group.