Mulder Jan

Jan Mulder was a Belgian artist, born in Ghent in 1897 and died in Ghent in 1962. He was a painter, woodcarver and illustrator. He trained at Sint-Lucas and at the Academy in Ghent, under the guidance of J. Delvin (painting) and G. Minne (drawing). In 1924 he became a teacher at the Academy in Aalst. In 1928 he took woodcarving lessons under the guidance of V. Stuyvaert and further specialized in this branch of art. He created figures, compositions with characters, portraits, symbolist compositions, seascapes, nudes, often placed in a landscape. His style was both realistic and symbolist, and he produced highly stylized works. From the press: “His art aims above all to achieve a decorative value, a whole, harmonious-solid of shapes and lines, packed into an elliptical and original arabesque. Reduction to its purest form. In this way the figure is reduced to the primitive, geometric shapes, to the beautiful conical shape of the breasts, for example, to the pure cylinder of the neck.” (G. Chabot, 1930). From 1950 onwards, Jan Mulder also leaned towards surrealism. From 1945 to 1957 he was a teacher at the Academy in Ghent. We find his work in the Museum in Ghent. He is mentioned in CRICK, BAS II and Two centuries of signatures of Belgian artists. (Piron)