Van De Woestyne Maxime

Maxime Van de Woestyne was a Belgian artist, born in Leuven in 1911 and deceased in Lasne in 2000. He worked as a painter and gouachist. He was trained by his father, Gustave Van de Woestyne, and studied drawing and perspective at the Academy in Mechelen. In 1937 he undertook a study trip to Innsbruck, where he followed a course in poster design. In 1939 he became secretary of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel. Closely associated with surrealism, he created a world dominated by dream, silence, restraint and imagination. Trees, beaches, female figures and interiors are among the recurring subjects from which his compositions were built. He taught in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre and at the Saint John Berchmans College in Brussels. In 1976 he was asked to establish a drawing school in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, where he became director in 1983. In 1994 he had an important exhibition at Emery Weinberger in Brussels. His work is held in the museum in Brussels. He is listed in BAS II and in Two Centuries of Signatures of Belgian Artists. (Piron)