GUSTAAF DE BRUYNE

Gustaaf De Bruyne was a Belgian artist who was born in 1914 in Mechelen and who died in 1981 in Poederlee. He was a painter and graphic artist. He was educated at the Academy in Mechelen and at the Higher Institute in Antwerp under G. Van De Woestyne and J. De Bruycker. He studied figure painting, compositions with nudes, portraits, and landscapes. During the Second World War, his work became realistic in style and his works became symbolist-pessimistic, which took on a surrealistic slant from 1945. He then created a dreamed world with fantasy and idealized figures and objects in a magical-realistic-rural context. The female nude was one of his chosen subjects. He became a member of the Circle ‘t Getij. De Bruyne was also a refined burin engraver and perfectionist of detail. He was a teacher at the Academy in Antwerp from 1946 to 1977. His works are in the Museums in Brussels, Antwerp, Mechelen, among others.