Belgian decorative painter, typographer, Esperantist and a pioneer of the libertarian movement. He finished his studies in anthropology in 1914, and from 1928 to 1938 undertook a world tour. He spent the latter part of his life in Great Britain, in the Tolstoyan colony of Whiteway, near Stroud.
Influenced by the works of Leo Tolstoy, Gassy Marin joined the libertarian group L’Expérience in September 1905, founded in Stockel-Bos by Émile Chapelier and his companion Valentine David. He was secretary there and contributed to the activities and publications of the colony.
He wrote for L’Insurgé and later for L’Émancipateur, the organs of the Groupement communiste libertaire (GCL) to which L’Expérience was affiliated.
A militant Esperantist, he wrote with Émile Chapelier Les anarchistes et la langue internationale espéranto, a text that served as a report to the Anarchist International of Amsterdam in 1907.
From June 1907, L’Expérience published its own magazine, Le Communiste, of which Gassy was the printer-publisher and which he continued after the dissolution of the commune in February 1908.
He then joined the Groupe révolutionnaire de Bruxelles, which brought together a new generation of anarchists of individualist and illegal inclination. Members included Édouard Carouy, Jean De Boë, Rhillon, Victor Kibaltchiche (Victor Serge) and Raymond Callemin. The group published the monthly magazine Le Révolté from August 1908. A magazine with the same title had already appeared from 1879 to 1894.
In 1910, with his companion Jeanne Martin, he took courses in social sciences at the Université libre de Bruxelles in Brussels. There he also studied anthropology until 1914.
At the outbreak of the First World War, both fled to Great Britain, where they joined the Tolstoyan colony of Whiteway, at Stroud. He was secretary there from 1914 to 1928 and founded a school that existed from 1920 to 1936.
From 1928 to 1938 he undertook a world tour. He conducted extensive anthropological observations with the inhabitants of Somalia, India, Sumatra and China, among others.
Gassy Marin died on 27 September 1969 in Whiteway at age 85.
Link to Wikipedia biography (Dutch)