Henri De Braekeleer 1840-1888
Herwig Todts
Musée Rops, Ronny Van De Velde & Ludion, 2019
€59,90
In 1872, Vincent Van Gogh – then a young employee of the Goupil & Cie art dealership – visited the large three-year summer exhibition in Brussels. He was struck by three “beautiful” paintings by Henri De Braekeleer. Van Gogh called his work “curiously beautiful”, and the artist “a famous colourist” who “is not afraid of a frank technique” and who “rigorously analyzes – Manet-like, at least as original as Manet”. Van Gogh’s great interest in the artist is characteristic of the attitude of the avant-garde. In De Braekeleer she recognized a precursor who managed to free herself from classical artistic conventions.
Today there is a need for a renewed acquaintance with De Braekeleer, who in the past was often unilaterally presented as a misunderstood genius. This fall, the Musée Rops in Namur is presenting the first retrospective of De Braekeleer since 1988 and shows not only a series of classics but also unknown work from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, the Musée des Beaux -Arts in Tournai and various private collections.
Herwig Todts is an art historian and is affiliated with the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp. He organizes exhibitions, both in the museum in Antwerp and at other locations, and publishes on nineteenth and twentieth-century art. James Ensor’s oeuvre is his most important field of research. IN DUTCH AND FRENCH!
ISBN: 9789493039261
