Emile GASTEMANS (Borgerhout, Antwerp, 1883 - 1956) - Lot 54

Emile GASTEMANS (Borgerhout, Antwerp, 1883 - 1956) Arab singers Canvas 81 x 100 cm Inscribed on the back: "Belonging to Dr. Van der Stricht - Antwerp", and exhibition label with the painting's title. Good condition (small hole in a face on the left) Originally a schoolteacher, Gastemans taught himself to paint before attending the Antwerp Academy. He was a member of the Antwerp art association Als Ik Kan. After the First World War, he traveled to Spain, notably Andalusia, and from there probably to Morocco. His Arab Singers show a concern for reconciling pictorial modernity with ethnographic testimony. A synthetic, almost geometric brushstroke and beautiful flat tints of matter, vigorously removed with a palette knife, bring the work to the limits of abstraction, in a beautiful harmony of whites and browns.