Schelck Maurice

Maurits (Maurice) Schelck was a Belgian painter, born in Aalst in 1906 and died in Sint-Martens-Latem in 1978. He trained at the Aalst Academy under the guidance of A. Ysabey (1916-1923); In Brussels he was a student of H. Richier and in 1931 he perfected himself in the free workshops in Paris. He made his debut in a traditional figurative design. In 1925 he won the Jeune Peinture Belge Prize and in 1931 the Godecharle Prize. In 1926 he founded the art association Nieuw Leven in Aalst and from 1927 to 1934 he was a teacher at the Academy also in Aalst. He settled in Brussels for a while and traveled to Germany and Italy from 1933-1935. In 1935 he interrupted his promising artistic career for other professional pursuits. In the early 1950s he took up palette and brush again, after which he mainly produced abstract work. In 1961 he moved to Deurle, and then settled permanently in Sint-Martens-Latem in 1962. In 1961 he broke with abstraction and started painting powerfully and exuberantly figuratively in an expressionist design and in a bright color palette: landscapes, rural scenes, work in the fields, fishing scenes, still lifes, flowers, figures and portraits. His work has its own expressiveness, despite the fact that his works reveal influences from the second Latem group. He remained a completely independent figure in Flemish painting. We find work by Maurice Schelck in the museums in Antwerp and Deurle. He is mentioned in BAS I and Two centuries of signatures of Belgian artists. (Piron)