Carlier Maurice

Maurice Carlier was a Belgian artist, born in Sint-Joost-ten-Node in 1894 and died in Brussels in 1976. He was a painter, draughtsman, watercolorist, printmaker and sculptor. He studied architecture at Sint-Lucas and at the Academy in Brussels, and began his career as an architect. From 1924 onwards he exhibited paintings at the Belgian Triennials. Later, he studied sculpture under G. Fontaine. Around 1945 he evolved from figurative expressionism towards abstraction, with forms in his sculptures sometimes reminiscent of Henry Moore. From the press in 2007: “The forgotten modernist from Brussels was, in his time, quite well-known. He helped to initiate abstraction in Belgium and exhibited in 1935 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts.” Private collector Geert Verbeke acquired hundreds of drawings, abstract sculptures, gouaches with furniture designs and architectural models that at the time drew little interest. A selection of this collection was shown at the Verbeke Foundation in Kemzeke in 2007/2008. Maurice Carlier is listed in BAS I and in Two Centuries of Signatures of Belgian Artists. (Piron)