Victor SimoninBelgian Post Impressionist Oil Painting of Flowers Victor Simonin Fauvist Master

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Victor Simonin (Belgian, 1877-1946).
An antique oil painting on board titled "Still Life of Flower and Fruit."
This abstract still … Read more Victor Simonin (Belgian, 1877-1946).
An antique oil painting on board titled "Still Life of Flower and Fruit."
This abstract still life work depicts a colorful botanical bouquet of flowers in vase and bowl on a white cloth covered table.
Artist signed upper right corner.
The painting retains a vintage ARIE VAN HARWEGEN DEN BREEMS gallery label verso. Presented in a gilt frame.

Artwork: 16 x 23.5 in.
Frame dimensions: 25.5 X 33 X 2 in.

Victor Simonin was born in 1877 in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium. He was a neo realist Impressionist painter of landscapes and still-life paintings.
He was a student at the Brussels Royal Academy of Fine Arts from 1894 through 1895 and afterwards studied with master teachers and artists, Alfred Bastien, Auguste Oleffe, Maurice Wagemans, Frans Smeers, Amedee Degreef and Albert Pinot.
He was also a student of music at the Brussels Conservatory becoming a talented violinist until suffering a hand injury. He was gifted in both arts. Simonin's loose and bold strokes utilized in his still life paintings emulated those of the famed artists, Vogels and Paul Hasserts. He also admired Alfred Bastien, who was one of his teachers. He was one of the elite group of Flemish painters "L'Essor." He exhibited rarely at his choice. In 1941, he was awarded the prestigious medal, "Prix A. Oleffe," named after one of his other master teachers. Simonin died in Ixelles in 1948. A retrospective of his work was shown at the "Musee d'Ixelles" in 1977 and again in 1997 at the "Centre d'Art de Rouge-Cloitre" at Auderghem
Described as a “tender bohemian”, Victor Simonin was a Belgian artist predominantly known for his vibrant Expressionist landscapes and still lifes. Simonin joined the artists’ association “Le Sillon”.
Le Peuple. Following a retrospective at the Salon de Printemps.
“It was a picturesque countenance of artistic Brussels, this Porte de Namur, which is a bit like our Montparnasse. We loved this bohemian with the face of an old actor. His chatter with a Parisian accent sometimes made us forget that he had been one of the good painters of Labeur and Sillon. We will be pleased to see in the retrospective devoted to him some still lifes and snow landscapes which are solid and honest canvases.”
Le Soir; Simonin Review: The Simonin retrospective also carries some self-portraits and portraits of Maurice Waegemans and the sculptor Mascré which are of excellent quality. In any case, it allows us to place in his exact place a painter whose works we had, during his lifetime, seen only insufficiently to appreciate him to his extent.”
La Dernière Heure. Regarding a retrospective exhibition.
“Here is Victor Simonin, who died two years ago while at work, at the age of sixty-eight. He lives here again. Ah! What vigour, what passion, what abundance! Uniformity, no doubt, and we all know that boredom was born one day from uniformity. And yet, we never tire of admiring the talent of the painter. He sabres his canvases like a cavalry officer from the time when there were still riders and cavalry charges.
Without doubt, Simonin cuts still lifes, always the same, one might say. Yes, but with what mastery! It would make a pot of mustard tragic. It is because his personality overflows with such violence that he makes eloquent the slightest object that he jostles with his brushes. He is a solitary and withdrawn fighter. He does not go outside to look for his subjects, they are within him. And yet... see these two seascapes, see his Workshop under the snow, see this sketch of a portrait by the sculpture Mascré... In truth, a beautiful painter in grey: soupieres, cauldrons, leeks, apples, flowers, grapes, turnips... It almost takes genius.”
Le Sillon was an association of visual artists in Brussels , founded in 1893 , under the chairmanship of Gustave-Max Stevens , as a successor to the art circle Voorwaarts . The founders were mainly young students of the Brussels Academy and the association was intended as a counterweight to neo impressionism and symbolism , and later also to luminism .
They wanted to return to a solid painting as in the past, back to the rich Flemish realistic tradition. The Spanish painter Velázquez was one of their great examples, their goal was naturalism. The members included Armand Apol, Géo Bernier, Maurice Blieck, Louise Brohée, Jean Colin, Jean Laudy, Michaux, Lucien Rion, Victor Simonin, Frans Smeers, Louis Thevenet, Emile Thysebaert, Paul Verdussen and Georges Van Zevenberghen. Several artists joined later: Léon Bartholomé, Félix Denayer, Fernand De Gouffre, Jean Gouweloos, Paul Mathieu, Victor Mignot and Philippe Swyncop . Léon Spilliaert was also a member of Le Sillon for a while. Originally they painted in dark, somber but rich colors with a preference for an excessive application of paint, but soon their touch became lighter, more luministic, which even brought their work close to the debut works of the later Brabant Fauvist artists. The Sillonists can therefore not yet be considered as precursors of Fauvism, the two groups are too different from each other for that. A number of Fauvists, including Willem Paerels , Louis Thevenet , Auguste Oleffe, Ramah, Rik Wouters, Edgard Tytgat, Ferdinand Schirren, Anne-Pierre De Kat, Philibert Cockx and Médard Maertens joined Le Sillon and showed at their annual exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Brussels. Annual exhibitions of members' work from 1893 until at least 1910. Ferdinand Toussaint created a famous Art Nouveau poster for their 1897 exhibition.
Simonin works are represented in the famous Belgian monograph "Dictionary of Belgian and Dutch flower painters born between 1750 and 1880" by Patrick and Viviane Berko, Berko edition, Knokke-Zoute 1995. See less