GOUACHES & WATERCOLOURS
BY BELGIAN MASTERS

GASTON BERTRAND  LOUIS VAN LINT  ANNE BONNET  MIG QUINET
MARCEL-LOUIS BAUGNIET   GUILLAUME VANDEN  BORRE
JEAN MILO  BERTHE DUBAIL  SUZANNE VAN DAMME​
JAN DE CLERCK  ZEPHIR BUSINE  GILBERT DECOCK
ROGER GREISCH  PIERRE  CLAREBOUT 
CHANTAL COPPIETERS 't WALLANT
THOMAS  VAN GINDERTAEL
​
EXHIBITION  February 9 - March 31  2018
Open wednesday to saturday  2 - 6 PM or on appointment 02.539.23.09

Group 2 Gallery exhibits gouaches & watercolours by 16 Belgian artists of three different generations. Not less than 5 of these artists were members of the famous group of "The Young Belgian Painters" (1945-48): Gaston Bertrand, Louis Van Lint, Anne Bonnet, Mig Quinet & Jean Milo.

Jan De Clerck ( 1881-1962 ) is called "The fourth giant of Ostend". Guy Jennings, former Deputy Chairman of Impressionist and Modern Paintings at Christie's, wrote that De Clerck adapted pointillism and the concentration on light to produce his own technique, often worked in mixed media, of dragging the paint with short vertical strokes (the so called "striptism technique") in order to build up the surface of his paintings. Ostend is a city proud of James Ensor, Leon Spilliaert and Constant Permeke​, but also of Jan De Clerck, a painter true to the spirit of the surroundings, but who was also in the words of James Ensor himself "le rare chercheur de jeunesse et d'illusion".
Marcel-Louis Baugniet ( Liège 1896 - Brussels 1995 ) studied at the art academy in Brussels from 1916 to 1918. His first works were influenced by Gustav Klimt and the belgian symbolist painter Fernand Khnopff. Later on, however, he became more interested in cubism, abstract art and, above all, in Russian “Suprematism” : Malevich and Lissitsky and in the work of Czech painter Frantisek Kupka ( 1871 – 1957 ). Baugniet spoke russian fluently and renamed his first wife, the ballet dancer Marguerite Acarin, “Akarova”. His second wife was russian. In 1924, Baugniet became a founding member of the important avant-garde group “7 Arts”. During that period Baugniet was one of the pioneers of constructivist art in Belgium. This first constructivist period ended in the early thirties after the great crash when most artists had a hard time to survive. Baugniet became an interior decorator and furniture designer, working in the spirit of the “Bauhaus” movement. His motto was “Le Beau, c’est l’Utile” ( The beautiful should be useful as well ). Furniture designed by Baugniet was exhibited at the world exhibition Expo 58 in Brussels. In the early 1970’s there was a renewed interest in abstract art. The Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels organized a retrospective “The first Belgian Abstracts” in 1972, whereby the public rediscovered Baugniet and his colleagues.
Suzanne Van Damme was born in Ghent, Belgium in 1901. Disciple of James Ensor in her early years, she painted the great Master in his Ostend home in 1925 with « The Entry of Christ in Brussels »,- which now belongs to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles- in the background. In 1938 Ensor painted a canvas named « Peintres aux Prises », featuring Suzanne Van Damme - pencil in hand - and himself seated and looking up at her.
Gaston Bertrand ( 1910-1994 ) , founding member of the group "Young belgian painters" ( 1945-48 ), was one of the best known belgian artists of his generation. In 1958 the Stable Gallery in New York organized a personal exhibition of the artist. 
Louis Van Lint studied painting at the Academy of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode until 1939. His early work reflects a traditional figurative painting style with a unique sense of color. In 1940 he founded the group "La Route Libre" with Gaston Bertrand and Anne Bonnet. His art was influenced to some degree by the animist movement, but he eventually broke away with the presentation of his painting, The Flayed Body (L'Ecorche, 1943), a shocking expression of his wish for more artistic freedom that consequently sounded a revolt against animism. As his style matured, he switched to abstraction in which he excelled as colorist. After World War II he co-founded La Jeune Peinture Belge. Van Lint experimented with geometric abstraction for a decade, and then, influenced by the French painter Bazaine, he started his lyrical abstraction period. He participated in the demonstrations and exhibitions of the CoBrA group. In 1958, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation gave him a prize and in 1960 he became a member of the Royal Academy of Belgium. In the 1960s, he introduced Hergé to abstract painting and provided him with private lessons for one year.
Anne Bonnet (  Brussels 1908-1960 ) , was formed at the Academy of Brussels and Saint-Josse-ten-Node, where she became friends with Louis Van Lint and Gaston Bertrand.  Her first solo exhibition was held at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1941. In that same year, she became a founding member of the ”Jeune Peinture Belge” ( JPB ) and in 1948 she exhibited at the famous Gallery Apollo. In his book about the “Jeune Peinture Belge”, the director of the Gallery Apollo Robert Delevoy devoted a whole chapter to her entitled "Anne Bonnet or the virtue of discretion." Around 1950 Anne Bonnet started to make abstract works and in 1952 she became a founding member of the group "Space", which advocated non-figurative art.
Mig Quinet, born near Charleroi in 1906, was educated at the Academy of Brussels. Her first solo exhibition took place in 1938 at Galerie Manteau in Brussels. She took part in the "Apport" exhibitions at the Apollo Gallery from 1945 onwards. Her acquaintance with  Brussels lawyer and mecenas René Lust allowed the foundation of the group of the Jeune Peinture Belge in 1945. During an ambitious JPB exhibition in Stockholm in 1947 she was involved in a serious traffic accident. After a long recovery and despite the dissolution of the group in 1948, she fought like a lioness to continue her artistic career. The most typical element in her work is the intense use of bright and bold colors. Its fragmented images, the violence of her palette of primary colors, her imagination, her sense of humor, her poetic sensibility, her use of pure white, her bold perspectives, her spirited writing, all this leads us to believe that Mig Quinet deserves to be among the great, not only of the JPB, but of the Belgian modern art scene “tout court”.
Berthe Dubail, together with Suzanne Van Damme and Suzanne Thienpont, formed a trio of female painters who introduced Sand, the typical living material for a country like Belgium, bordered by the North Sea, known for the beauty of its white sand beaches. What more natural then than to mix this living material that changes the oil painting in an almost sculptural mass with an almost sensual and irregular relief. Indeed, the mixture of oil and sand gives another form to a composition which obtains a certain relief or almost sculptural volume in neutral colors, grey, beige, ocher, the color of the earth. Dubail’s compositions of circles, ovals and ellypses are like stars floating in the cosmos. There in the sinuous curves, in these vortices, in these deep caverns, is a latent eroticism, a moving sensuality which require a careful eye.
Gilbert Decock was born in Knokke at the Belgian coast in 1928. He studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Bruges. Since the end of the 1950's the artist painted elementary forms such as circles, squares and triangles which are dialoguing on his canvases. His paintings and sculptures can be qualified as minimalist, ascetic, austere, symbolic, meditative and spiritual. In 1965 Decock became a founding member of the group "D 4" together with E. Bergen, V. Noël and M. Verdren. In 1967 Jo Delahaut joined the group whose name was changed into "Geoform". Decock executed several monumental projects in his long career for Distrigas, the Knokke Casino and the Metro station "Arts-Loi" in Brussels.
A fine monography about the artist by Dr Serge Goyens de Heusch was published by Lannoo ( Tielt, Belgium ) in 1995.
Zéphir Busine was, together with a.o. Roger Dudant, one of the founders of the “Hainaut 5” group of artists. Read more.
The abstract paintings of Roger Greisch are obviously very poetic. Indeed, they are by no means cold geometrical abstractions. The “good vibrations” emanating from the web of geometric lines leave spectators dreaming. The contours do not form any brutal ruptures between two planes of rectangles or circles. Without really blending the colors, the artist manages to soften the contrast between two surfaces, creating hereby a harmonious and sober composition. His “abstract landscapes” are far from being dumb ! At times the storm is breaking out and we imagine lightning crossing the canvas. Roger Greisch is definitely a great artist from the depths of the Belgian Ardennes whose talent should be recognized far beyond the belgian art scene.
Pierre Clarebout (Ypres 1933) is a self-taught painter, chemist by profession and amateur archaeologist. His close friend Marce-Louis Baugniet was intrigued by Clarebout's mixtures of colors and his technique to obtain luminosities and transparencies. An indefatigable researcher in his lab, Clarebout feels at ease on the field where he finds his inspiration. In his geometric compositions, one recognizes forms of shards, tiles, sections of walls and structures revealed by aerial photography, remains of Roman villas, tumuli, military camps etc.. In 1994 and in 2012 Group 2 Gallery organized two exhibitions of Marcel-Louis Baugniet & Pierre Clarebout.
Chantal Coppieters t'Wallant (Brussels 1950) is a multidisciplinary artist making watercolors, ink drawings, pastels, acrylic and vinyl paintings. From the theme of sports ( skateboard - American football - motorcycles - F1 – cycling ), her work gradually evolved  to Abstract Constructivism.





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8 rue Blanche, 1000 Brussels - Belgium
T. +32 (0)2 539 23 09 | group2gallerybrussels@gmail.com

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