Buys Victor

Victor Buys (also known as Fic or Vik Buys) was a Belgian artist, born in Ravels in 1937 and passed away in Veurne in 2005. He was a figurative painter, draftsman, watercolorist and printmaker.

He studied at the Normal School in Ghent, at the Academy and at the Higher Institute in Antwerp. He was co-founder of the Kunstkamer van de Westhoek and of Internationale Confrontaties vzw in Veurne.

He initially found inspiration in the quiet landscapes of the Kempen region. He held great admiration for Jakob Smits. The press wrote: “F.B. is an artist who continues the great tradition of Jakob Smits, Dirk Baksteen and others in his own way,” and “V.B. is above all a draftsman, evoking the Kempen as it no longer exists: the low, somewhat gloomy farmhouses with roofs almost touching the ground, hamlets and tree-lined paths.” About his graphic work: “The exceptionally free way in which he handles the etching needle gives the etchings their expressive power. The seemingly chaotic and impulsive scratching back and forth, and the rough hatching, reveal the feverish urgency with which V.B. carves into the ground. Techniques of various gradations are applied in a single bite, creating a slight sense of depth.”

Victor Buys was curator of the Jakob Smits Museum. He first worked in Mol and later settled in Veurne, where he found effortless inspiration in the landscape.

His work can be found in churches in Diksmuide, Lampernisse and Snellegem, and in museums in Johannesburg, Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata (Argentina). In 1982, China acquired 35 etchings by his hand.

He is listed in the Lexicon of West Flemish Visual Artists and Two Centuries of Signatures of Belgian Artists (Piron).