Dufour Jos

Jos Dufour was a Belgian artist, born in Leuven in 1896 and died in Leuven in 1976. He was a painter and pastelist. He was educated at the Academy in Leuven, under the direction of E. Faut, J. Hodru, L. Bosmans and O. Dierckx (1912-1916). He was a student of A. Delaunois from 1920 to 1933. Here he also engaged in blacksmithing. He folded copper and iron with great skill into very expressive faces: a clown, a blind man, a mask. After the Second World War he lived in Sint-Martens-Latem for some time and came into contact with Permeke, De Saedeleer and Saverys. He was influenced by his sense of the mystical and in the beginning was also influenced by Flemish expressionism. He made his debut with (winter) landscapes, but also painted portraits, flower arrangements, harbor and seascapes. He liked a low horizon line in order to optimally depict the grandeur and unrest of the cloud fields. From the press: 'His winter landscapes are desolate in themselves. A sparse tree or bare bush in the foreground. Humans, as far as they appear in his works, are only puny and vulnerable creatures exposed to the forces of nature. It is mainly the charm of the sometimes incident light that differentiates these often related subjects.' Jos Dufour evolved from about the 1960s towards surrealism and fantasy. In 1965 he became a member of the International Center for Phantasmagoria. Hallucinatory images then emerged from his subconscious or imagination and accumulations of terrifying creatures or motifs in screaming colors. In 1965 he won a silver medal at the International Painting Competition in Villers-la-Ville. He had a studio in Heverlee. He is mentioned in BAS I and Two centuries of signatures of Belgian artists. (Piron)