Gustave van de Woestijne

Gustave van de Woestijne was born in Gand, Belgium in 1881. Around 1899 he moved to St Martens-Latem to join a group of artists who had settled there, among which Albijn van den Abeele, Valerius de Saedeleer, George Minne and Albert Servaes. They were called the first group of St. Martens-Lathem. Although surrounded by artists who worked in an expressionist way, Gustave van de Woestyne developed his own characteristic style. He was inspired by the Flemish primitives that he saw at an important exhibition in Bruges in 1902. After World War I his works showed sharp contours and moderate colours, as in the Quattrocento frescos. Apart from that he developed  a keen feeling for European influences such as the French Cubism and German Expressionism.

In 1928, the year he paints La Mere et son Enfant, Van de Woestijne becomes a teacher at the Institut Superieur des Arts Decoratifs at the Terkameren Abbey in Brussels. He works there under the supervision of Henri van Velde who had lived for a long time in Germany where he was strongly influenced by the movements there. Van de Woestyne his inclination towards the Neue Sachlichkeit can be explained by this. The representatives of the Neue Sachlichkeit depict their subjects in a grotesque and monumental way, they have a critical view on their social surroundings and revert to the techniques of the Old Masters. In this period, Van de Woestyne's affiliation is more to artists such as Otto Dix and Christian Schad, than to the Flemish expressionists of his time such as Gustave de Smet and Constant Permeke. This influence is clear in La Mère et son Enfant. The work is painted in the grotesque and monumental way of the Italian fresco painters that he saw in San Marco on his trip to Italy in 1927. The present painting demonstrates the great quality and the individuality of the artist Gustave van de Woestijne who, despite external influences, always remained rue to his own style.