Maurice Wyckaert
"Every landscape tells a story"

"The bridge" 1967,  Oil on canvas
A tribute to the german avant-garde group "Die Brücke"
Exhibitions : Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (1967) and Brussels (2018/19)
Illustration on the cover of the book "Wyckaert" by Freddy Devree, Ed. Lannoo, Poem by Hugo Claus

"Ellera" 1983, Oil on canvas
A village along the Ligurian coast near Genoa, Italy
​Exhibitions :  Tokyo Biennial, 1986, Museum of Ostend, 2000

 ​"To all sides"  1995  Oil on canvas
Exhibitions : Royal Museum of Fine Arts Brussels, 2018-2019, Museum of Ostend, 2000
Illustrated on the cover of the book "Wyckaert, the restless landscape" edited by Fonds Mercator

  "In Flanders fields" 1962,  Oil on canvas  
SOLD

"​Cloud in the form of a tree" 1962, Oil on canvas
Painted in Albisola, near Genoa, Italy

"Clouded mountain" 1975, Oil on canvas
SOLD

"The waterfall" 1976,  Oil on canvas
SOLD

"On the spot" (Sur le Vif) 1989, Oil on canvas
SOLD

"Das Abenteuerliche Herz" 1995
Tribute to Ernst Jünger
SOLD
Private collection, USA

Maurice Wyckaert ​(Brussels 1923-1996) was undoubtedly one of the most influential and talented belgian artists of his generation. He was educated at the Academy of Brussels and started painting expressionistic still lifes in the style of Jean Brusselmans. Later he found inspiration in the work of William Turner and James Ensor and their ideas about luminism. In 1955 the artist started to lyrically abstract interpret his environment, with influences of Eastern calligraphy. His works evolved to a dynamic abstract combination of attractive colors, which harmoniously shape a free interpretation of landscapes. Wyckaert was actively involved in several art movements and became co-founder of Belgian art magazines De Meridiaan and Taptoe Brussels (1955). He was also a member of Présence (1949) and the Situationist International movement of Guy Debord (SI). He was befriended with several CoBrA-members, especially with danish artist Asger Jorn.​
Wyckaert's paintings strike by the richness and freshness of their colors, which vary infinitely depending on whether they are lit by the sun or darkened by the passage of clouds. During their journey around the earth, colors change in tone and temperature: green turns black, blue becomes purple, orange turnes into red, yellow takes on shades of ocher. The dark green of the forests, the golden yellow of the wheat fields, the azure blue of the sky, the vermilion red of the fruit trees, all these colors are in constant movement, blown by the wind. Flemish poet and close friend Hugo Claus​ called them "turbulent landscapes".
Wyckaert led a nomadic life and moved many times, eager to discover new horizons and people which inspired him. He participated in the Venice and Sao Paulo Biennials. In 2018-2019 the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium paid tribute to the artist with the retrospective "Inner Landscapes". Group 2 Gallery, who organized in 2010 a one-man show ​​"Landscapes revisited", has been promoting relentlessy Wyckaert's oeuvre and has got several iconic works in its permanent collection. Feel free to contact us by mail or by phone for more information.

 

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