Born in Brussels in 1923, Somville lost his father at an early age. He and his mother faced a precarious material existence. His uncle, a lithographer and early Marxist, was a source of ideological influence. He took drawing lessons at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels (1940 - 1942), and then went to the higher National School for Architecture and Decorative Arts of Brussels - La Cambre - (in the architect Lucien François' atelier). It was here that he would meet the painter Charles Counhaye, who was to show him the way to expressive and monumental art (1942-1945).
