Grard, George

George Grard was a Belgian artist, born in Tournai in 1901 and passed away in Koksijde in 1984. He was a sculptor and draftsman. He studied drawing, sculpture, and painting at the Academy in Tournai and became a pupil of Maurice Dekorte at the age of 22. In 1931, he settled in Sint-Idesbald. In his fisherman's house, he received visitors such as Valerius De Saedeleer, Paul Delvaux, and Edgard Tytgat. He belonged to the “lost generation of 1900” or the animists, who, during the interwar period, aimed for a more humane art. Amidst the revolutionary movements of Expressionism and the Cobra movement, Grard sought a sensual form of expression. He preferred modelling over stone carving.

Grard is mostly associated with a naturalistic and human approach to the female form. For him, the eternal Muse appeared as a naiad, a Niobe, a siren, or a modern woman. In the 1940s, he was influenced by Maillol, creating supple, flexible, and sometimes voluptuous nudes. While he initially polished his sculptures thoroughly with a smooth patina, he later preferred a rougher bronze surface. Notable works include The Sea, nicknamed The Fat Mathilde (Ostend), and the bronze naiad on the Pont-à-Pont bridge in Tournai.

In the 1970s, he increasingly turned to drawing. From the press: “In his drawings, he confides with flawless strokes the same emotions that celebrate the body and manage to make it autonomous within his warm, sensual reality.” George Grard is mentioned in the Lexicon of West Flemish Visual Artists VI, BAS I, and Two Centuries of Signatures of Belgian Artists. (Piron)