Keelhoff Alice

Alice Keelhoff was a Belgian artist, born in Ghent in 1896 and died in Ghent in 1983. She was a painter and draughtswoman. Frans Keelhoff was her great-uncle. She spent her childhood in the Limburg Kempen. Despite the fact that she loved to draw, she chose music with the secret dream of making a career in this field. Her health failed her too often and at the age of 33 she started drawing again. For three years she attended Parisian courses by correspondence. From about 1933, she studied oil painting at the Académie Julian in Paris. She worked, among others, under the direction of Bergès on the Grande Chaumière. She had a preference for the intimate atmosphere, most of her oeuvre consists of: interiors, still lifes, flowers, figures, nudes and portraits. She loved back-light effects and her works bathed in an intimate atmosphere. In 1939 she participated in the Four Yearly Exhibition in Brussels, in 1937, 1946, 1950, 1954, 1960 and 1964 in the Salons in Ghent and from 1935 in fourteen exhibitions at the Salon des artistes français in Paris/France. We can find her work (Self-portrait) in the Museum in Ghent. The MSK Gent states the following about this: “In her self-portrait, she depicts herself with her painter's palette, to demonstrate her profession. She looks sideways, as if the work she is painting is out of the frame. Interesting is the way she has displayed her signature. She chose to sign the painting she depicted behind her.” Alice Keelhoff is listed in BASI and Two Centuries of Signatures of Belgian Artists. (Piron, BT)