D'HALUIN, Gustave
Facts about this piece
BELGIAN 1883-1974
WINTER
OIL ON CANVAS, SIGNED WITH PSEUDONYM 'STAF STIENTJES'
55" X 71"
Excellent
Author Bio
Signed in the artist’s customary manner using his pseudonym, Staf Stientjes this work dates to around 1925. It can be considered amongst the artist’s most ambitious compositions and a work of the highest quality. Born Gustaaf d’Haluin in the town of Waregem in 1883 he would become a painter of landscapes of some considerable note. At the age of thirteen he enrolled at the Academy of Waregem before transferring three years later to study with Emmanuel Vierin at the Academy of Kortrijk. As a young artist he was encouraged by Emile Claus to paint landscapes in an impressionist manner and indeed his early works show much of Claus’s influence. During World War One he lived in Paris where he met Utrillo and Vlaminck but it was a chance meeting after the war that would dictate his future direction as a painter. He had returned to Belgium and settled in the small village of Tiegem which also happened to be the home town of Valerius de Saedeleer. He immediately fell in love with the simplicity and purity of de Saedeleer’s paintings and from then on adopted a similar style himself. His Flemish landscapes have an almost surreal quality with their simple block coloring, frequently people with small, almost doll-like, figures.After a long and distinguished career, d’Haluin died in the town of Tiegem in 1974.
Lit: E. Benezit
Arto
P. Piron