Massonet Armand

Armand Massonet was a Belgian artist born in Saint-Gilles/Brussels in 1892 and died in Jette in 1979. He was a watercolourist, draftsman, painter, illustrator, poster designer and sculptor. He first trained as a teacher at the Charles Buls normal school in Brussels, then at the Academy in Brussels (1918-1919). He then spent a considerable time in Paris, where he continued his training, among other things, in Cormon's studio at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts. He painted watercolors and mainly drew figures, genre scenes and war scenes in a spontaneous design and loose brushstrokes. The figures appear smoothly sketched, agile and lively. He thus captured daily life in his immediate surroundings: portraits of personalities, cityscapes of Brussels, anecdotal and intimate scenes, in which the play of light always played an important role. During the First World War he was attached to the army as a painter and then illustrated the trench magazine La Claque à Fond. He published several didactic works on sketching techniques and illustrated, among others, L'Album des Champagnes (1936). Around 1950 he designed numerous posters for the Belgian railways. From 1920 to 1945 he was a teacher at the Charles Buls School in Brussels. His work can be found in the Museum and the Print Room in Brussels, among other places. He is mentioned in BAS I and Two centuries of signatures of Belgian artists. (piron)