Portrait of Serge Goyens de Heusch by Gaston Bertrand, 1978

A SELECTION OF ARTISTS BY
SERGE GOYENS DE HEUSCH

GASTON  BERTRAND   LOUIS VAN LINT  MIG QUINET  JEAN MILO
JO  DELAHAUT  PIERRE-LOUIS  FLOUQUET  LISMONDE
ENGLEBERT  VAN  ANDERLECHT  BERTHE  DUBAIL
PAUL  SCHROBILTGEN  ROGER  GREISCH
ANDRE  WILLEQUET  GILBERT DECOCK
ROGER  DUDANT  BERNARD  GHOBERT 
GISELE VAN LANGE
 
OPENING  THURSDAY  JUNE  14   2018
6 - 9 PM
​  Exhibition June 15 - July 14  2018
Open wednesday to saturday  2 - 6 PM or on appointment 02.539.23.09

Serge Goyens de Heusch (Brussels 1939) graduated as an art historian at the "Institut supérieur de l'histoire de l'art" in Brussels, the University of Louvain-la-Neuve and the University of Paris-Sorbonne. Mr Goyens de Heusch has been director of the Institute of Fine Arts in Wavre, of Galerie Armorial at the Grand Sablon in Brussels and of the "Foundation for belgian contemporary art", a public institution founded in 1981 and promoting belgian artists through the organization of exhibitions and the publication of books and monographies. Above all, Mr Goyens de Heusch is a prolific writer who published dozens of books and monographies about belgian artists from the XXth century. During his long career he built an impressive collection of belgian modern art, which he generously bequeathed to the Museum of Louvain-la-Neuve, an important belgian University city. At the same time a fine book "Belgian Art of the XXth Century" has been published. Mr Goyens de Heusch is also President of the "Gaston Bertrand Foundation", which has been promoting the work of belgian painter Gaston Bertrand for many years.


Gaston Bertrand (1910-1994) was one of the best known belgian artists of his generation. In 1945 he was a founding member of the group "Young Belgian Painters". In 1958 the Stable Gallery in New York organized a personal exhibition of the artist.
Louis Van Lint (1909-1986) 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.
Jean Milo (1906 - 1993) studied at the Brussels Fine Art Academy in 1923 and became deputy manager of the famous Gallery "Le Centaure" in Brussels from 1926 to 1930. He exhibited in 1932 at the Schwarzenberg Gallery in Brussels. In 1933 he founded his own Gallery "Atelier de la Grosse Tour" in Brussels, where he organized an exhibition of Paul Delvaux. Member of the group "Young Belgian Painters" ( 1945-1948 ), he co-founded, with Jo Delahaut, the "Abstract Art" group of artists in 1952. In 1953 he visited the Belgian Congo and made upon his return a number of works inspired by this voyage.
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. Her abstract works of the 50s, her "allusive figurations" (Serge Goyens de Heusch) of the 60’s and 70’s bear witness to a joy of  life and an exceptional originality. The most typical element in her work, however, 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”.
Jo Delahaut (1911 - 1992) was at the forefront of Geometric Abstraction in Belgium after World War II. He was the first member of the "Young Belgian Painters" ( 1945-1948 ) who decided in 1946 to make exclusively abstract works. Both as an artist and as a Professor his influence was essential. In 1952 he was co-founder, together with Pol Bury, Jean Milo, Georges Collignon a.o. of the group "Abstract Art" and in 1954 he published, with Pol Bury, the "Spatialism" manifest.​
Berthe Dubail formed, with Suzanne Thienpont and Suzanne Van Damme, 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.
Englebert Van Anderlecht (1918-1961) was rightly considered as one of the most talented belgian artists of his generation. The artist is best known for his large "gestual" lyrical abstract paintings he made at the end of his short career. Van Anderlecht made a fine series of ink and charcoal drawings on paper depicting industrial landscapes. 
​Roger Dudant (1929 - 2008) participated in 1955 in the "International Exhibition of Contemporary Art" at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh and in 1956 in the exhibition organized by Belgian Shell at the Palais des Beaux-Arts. In 1961 the artist had a personal exhibition at the "Albert Landry Galleries" in New York. In the 1970's he was a founding member, with Zéphir Busine, of the "Hainaut 5" group of artists and became Professor at the "La Cambre Institute" in Brussels, succeeding to his close friend and Professor Paul Delvaux. In 2012 Group 2 Gallery paid tribute to Dudant with a one-man show "The beauty of natural, urban & industrial landscapes".
Lismonde (1908 - 2001) is rightly considered as a master drawer in a universe dominated by black & white. The artist created during his career an exceptionnaly fine series of ink and charcoal drawings on paper, both figurative and abstract. Part of his oeuvre is inspired by factories and industrial landscapes in Belgium.
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.
André Willequet (1921-1998) studied sculpture at the "La Cambre Institute" in Brussels from 1940 to 1945 and works in the atelier of Oscar Jespers. In 1947 he is awarded the second "Prix de Rome". Visiting Paris in 1948 he meets the famous sculptors Zadkine, Laurens and Brancusi. In the early fifties he studies at the Royal College of Art in London and meets Henry Moore and Jacob Epstein. Willequet gradually changed his style from figuration to abstraction. He worked with wood, stone, bronze and steel.
Paul Schrobiltgen, born near Arlon in 1923, studied at the Academy of his native city, where he met Roger Greisch. In the 1950's Schrobiltgen moved to Brussels where he exhibited at Galerie Vendôme in 1962 and where he met Tytgat and Oscar Jespers. In Paris he discovered the art of Serge Poliakoff and Nicolas de Staël, who would influence his works. From the 1970's until his death in 1980 Schrobiltgen exhibited regularly at the famous Galerie Armorial of Serge Goyens de Heusch at the Grand Sablon in Brussels.  A fine monography by Mr Goyens de Heusch was published in 1991.









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