Maurice Boel (1913-1998)
Vertical abstractions from the 1950's and 1960's

Vertical Abstraction 1961
Oil on canvas, 195 x 110 cm
Former collection Mr and Mrs Oscar Mairlot, Brussels
​Available, call 02 539.23.09 or mail [email protected]

Mrs and Mr Oscar Mairlot at the opening of a Baugniet exhibition.
​Group 2 Gallery, 1994

Vertical Abstraction 1959
Collection MuZee, Ostend

Monography about Maurice Boel, 1993

Vertical Abstraction, 1958

Maurice Boel exhibition, Group 2 Gallery, 1993

Vertical Abstraction, 1956

Vertical Abstraction, 1958

​Former Prime Minister Theo Lefèvre, Maurice Boel & Emile Langui
​Opening of a Boel exhibition at the Ostend Casino Kursaal, 1963

Jeannine Lenaerts & Maurice Boel at the Boel exhibition in "Das Belgische Haus", Cologne 1994

​Maurice Boel was born in 1913 in Ostend, the city of Ensor, Spilliaert and Permeke. The great James Ensor himself insisted on writing an introduction for the opening of young Boel's first exhibition in 1938, describing his art as both "strong and pleasant to the eye" and ending by the boutade "Boel, den Boel (your work) is good !".  Boel's real idol, however, was Constant Permeke, the giant of flemish expressionism. At the end of the 1940's Boel settled in Paris ans studies at the "Grande Chaumière" where he met Zadkine, Hartung, Braque and other famous artists. Influenced by the avant-garde, cubism and constructivism, his work gradually became abstract, culminating in powerful vertical compositions in the 1950's, glowing with an inner light due to the use of warm colours and with an irregular surface caused by several superposed layers of paint. 
Group 2 Gallery organized a solo exhibition of Maurice Boel in 1993 and at "Das Belgische Haus" in Cologne in 1994. Maurice Boel died in Ostend in 1998. 

 

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