van Hecke Willem

Willem Van Hecke was a Belgian artist born in Blankenberge in 1893 and died there in 1976. He was a painter and draftsman. Self-taught. Started as an impressionist but evolved from 1920 into a personal style with cubist influences and painted navies, landscapes, farmers and workers. From around 1940, the human figure appears in his oeuvre in which he develops a strong personal expressionism. From the press: "His work is based on the Western European expressionism, he is influenced by the magic of the art of primitive peoples. W.V.H. gives shape to archaic human figures. In these types of primal types, he eliminates everything that is incidental, creating a tragic masquerade of displaced persons, abused persons and schizophrenics. His figures look at us stiff and bewildered" and "First and foremost tonalist, he creates wonderful compositions of small size, detached from nature, but gripping by their expressionist character. On various sides his painting is related to that of Constant Permeke, but without the grandeur of the latter. His paintings, on the other hand, are intimistic, full of simple and popular poetry." Work among others in the Museums in Ghent and Ostend. Mention in the Lexicon of West Flemish visual artists II, BAS I and Two centuries of signatures by Belgian artists. (PIRON)