Oleffe Auguste

Auguste Oleffe was a Belgian artist born in Sint-Joost-ten-Node in 1867 and died in Auderghem in 1931. He was a painter, watercolorist and graphic artist. He was educated at the Drawing School in Sint-Joost-ten-Node and then worked as a draftsman-lithographer in printing houses. He spent a short time in Paris and then settled in Nieuwpoort with his wife and his friend Louis Thévenet. He sought seclusion and made his debut with gloomy, socially oriented canvases depicting fishermen's life and in equally sombre, broadly painted canvases he captured the magnificence of the sea. He settled in Auderghem in 1906 and worked there with the group of the Rood Klooster. At that moment a period of peace and prosperity began and his subjects became lively and poetic, his palette more optimistic and he painted with broad brushstrokes and in lavish colours. Among other things, he realized figures in parks, portraits, characters, interiors and, especially after 1924, small still lifes. He exerted a clear influence on the young Fauvist in Brabant. In 1898 he co-founded the Le Labeur Group. He traveled to Beirut in 1901 and became a member of Kunst van Heden in 1905. From 1930 he was a teacher at the Higher Institute in Antwerp. His work can be found in the museums in Brussels, Ixelles, Ghent, Tournai and Antwerp, among others. He is mentioned in BAS I, II and Two centuries of signatures of Belgian artists. (piron)