Frans Depooter (1898-1987) - Fleurs au vase

Oil on canvas, representing a bouquet of flowers in a vase signed

Frans Depooter (1898-1987)

Frans Depooter, born in Mons on November 24, 1898 and died in Maffe (Havelange) on August 13, 1987, is a Belgian painter, landscape artist, still life painter and portraitist.

Biography
Frantz André Antoine Depooter, born in Mons on November 24, 1898, is the son of François Depooter, decorative painter and entrepreneur, and Rosa Colmant. On December 15, 1923, he married the painter Andrée Bosquet, a young student he had met at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Mons.

Before and after World War I, his father’s workshop produced interiors’ sets for private homes and for many theaters. It is thus that Franz Depooter began working at the age of 13 in the family business where he met Anto Carte, Fernand Gommaerts, Léon Navez and Léon Devos. In 1928, they would co-found the Nervia Group.

After finishing secondary school in Mons, Frans Depooter first becomes a land surveyor, graduated from the Institut Simon Stévin in Brussels. From 1912 to 1914, he was enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Mons where he notably took etching classes with Alfred Duriau. He then took courses at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels and, in 1917, was deported by the Germans to France during World War I.

After the Armistice of November 1918, he followed the courses of Jean Delville and Constant Montald in Brussels. He then returned to Mons where he collaborated on the family workshop’s works and studied in the evenings at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Mons (with Émile Motte). Noticed by the latter, he was an interim lecturer from 1923 to 1925 at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Mons.

From 1926 to 1930, passionate about nature, he settled in the wooded surroundings of Wauthier-Braine where he devoted himself to poultry farming.

Returning to painting, he joined in October 1930 as drawing professor in secondary education. Six years later, he taught painting at the School of Decorative Arts in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, where he became director from 1944.

During World War II, he participated in the armed Resistance.

He participated in exhibitions of the Mons-based artistic circle “Le Bon Vouloir” and exhibited in 1935 at the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels a collection of his paintings.

He painted landscapes of Walloon Brabant, the Ardennes, Collioure, Spain and Corsica.

Artistic style
Of poetic inclination, Frans Depooter deepened his resolutely figurative style in keeping with his nature. His stylized still lifes, his landscapes and his expressionist figures give way early to refined works of apparent simplicity. His portraits on a plain background stand apart in the dream or inner life of the model. His flowers form fragile and tender bouquets. His landscapes, often treated in half-tones and transposed by nuanced light, bear witness to a discreet sensitivity (he was nicknamed: The Cantor of Walloon Brabant). Frans Depooter’s talent lies in the pursuit of measure, refinement and poetry.

Distinctions
He received various honors including:
- Knight of the Order of the Crown (Belgium) Knight of the Order of the Crown in 1956;
- Gold Medal at the Exposition of Decorative Arts (Art Deco) in Paris in 1925;
- Hainaut Prize in 1939;
- Prize of the City of Mons – Claire Sauté in 1967;
- Charles Caty Prize of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Mons in 1969;
- Gold Medal of European Artistic Merit.

Dimensions of the work: without frame: 80 cm x 65 cm
: with frame: 93 cm x 79 cm

The work is dated 1966 and signed at the bottom right.

Auction results for Frans DEPOOTER in Painting:

Young girl visiting (1963)
Frans DEPOOTER
Oil/board
80.5 x 60.5 cm
Estimate: €200 - €400
Hammer price: €1,700
25/03/2024
Crait + Müller
Vase of field flowers (1943)
No image

Vase of field flowers (1943)
Frans DEPOOTER
Oil/canvas
80 x 66 cm
Estimate: €800 - €1,200
Hammer price: €1,000
17/01/2006
Vanderkindere
Floral jug
No image

Floral jug
Frans DEPOOTER
Oil/canvas
80 x 70 cm
Estimate: €1,000 - €1,500
Hammer price: €950
14/10/1996
Horta
Vase of flowers (1952)
Frans DEPOOTER
Oil/board
80 x 60 cm
Estimate: €120 - €180
Hammer price: €720
12/02/2023
Monsantic