Le Lilas Blanc

FRANZ VAN MONTFORT    

1889-1980    

Belgian School

Le Lilas Blanc   

Oil on canvas, signed, inscribed and dated 1920  

149.5 x 109 cms

587/8 x 427/8 inches

Franz van Montfort was born in Saint-Joseph-ten-Node in 1889 and from 1905 to 1912 did his artistic training at L'Académie de Bruxelles. He studied under the important Symbolist painter Fernand Khnopff, Emile Fabry, and Jean Delville who were also Symbolists, Guillaume van Strydonck who was one of the pre-cursors of Luminism, Herman Richir and Constant Montald who was a muralist and Professor of the Académie.

As well as becoming a painter in oils, he also worked in watercolours and was also a graphic artist and draughtsman. His subject matter was varied and he produced figure subjects, portraits, nudes, interiors, landscapes, still-lifes and flower pieces.

From 1910, he came under the influence of Fauvism and this lasted until the end of the First World War when he increasingly employed Cubism in his paintings. Between 1921 and 1923 he taught art at L'Académie de Nivelles and after that he moved to Paris, remaining there until 1968 and making a return to painting in the Fauvist manner.