Sorel Gustaaf

Gustaaf Sorel was a Belgian artist, born in Ostend in 1905 and died in Ostend in 1981. He was a painter and draftsman, who grew up in the fishing districts of Ostend. He studied under Auguste Distave but was largely self-taught. He made his debut with linocuts and ink drawings in the style of J. Minne and F. Masereel. Later, he painted city and street scenes, landscapes, and marines in a synthesized style, incorporating figurative as well as expressionist, cubist, and constructivist influences. From the press: “These houses, facades, alleys, streets, blocks of houses are the embodiment of a kind of obsession with silence, with the same oppressive mystery that hangs over the deserted Roman squares of De Chirico” (F. Edebau), and “G. S. depicted the world he faced daily, often in black-and-white tones and muted colors with strong contours in his paintings on various supports. The essence was present: facades of old houses with numerous windows behind which something always happened, people in the street, a procession, marines, fishermen and their wives, women of pleasure, occasionally a religious allusion. Simple and fundamental, seemingly so, yet upon closer inspection one discovers structures, a disquieting use of color, a personal form of abstraction, silence that weighs heavily, something connected to authenticity and existing outside of artistic trends.” (H.B., 2005). In 1934 he co-founded the Academy in Ostend, where he became a teacher and served as its director from 1948 to 1977. His works can be found in the museum of Ostend. He is mentioned in the Lexicon of West Flemish visual artists I and in Two Centuries of Signatures of Belgian Artists. (Piron)