ALBERT GEUDENS (Mechelen 1869 – Schaarbeek 1949)
The Inn, Zeeland
signed in the lower right A. Geudens, and inscribed En Zeelande on the reverse
oil on panel
13 x 16 inches (33 x 40.6 cm)
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, California
Albert Geudens began his studies at the Academy of Mechelen with Willem Geets. From 1890-1891, he studied with Albert De Vriendt at the Antwerp Academy. He specialized in cityscapes especially featuring Mechelen, genre, and interiors. He also worked as an engraver, and was a member of La Gravure Originale Belge. He exhibited in contemporary art shows held in Antwerp, Brussels, Lèige, Barcelona, and Venice. He was made a Knight of the Order of Leopold. Geuden’s works can be found in the museums of Antwerp, Courtrai, Ixelles, and Mechelen.[1]
From the 1880s onwards, foreign artists from all over the world, including those of neighboring Belgium, had become enamored with all things Dutch. They arrived in droves to search for what they considered to be the “true” Holland[2], and this is the impetus behind our panel.
Sunlight pours in from a large window from the right. Its reflections cast golden highlights across the red-tiled floor of the interior of an old-fashioned inn of Zeeland. The walls are white stucco, haphazardly adorned with a blue-and-white delft plate, wall clock, bill of fare, and a framed print. The modest furnishings consist of a corner cupboard, two wooden tables, and two ladder-back thrush chairs. The discarded umbrella, leaning against the chair in the center of the composition, underlines the quality of the day. An open door, and green wood paneling, frame the cluttered kitchen of the background, where a white-capped woman is hard at work.
Boldly realized by a mix of colorful, broad strokes, this painting captures and idealizes a world that even then was rapidly vanishing
[1] Biographical information taken from P. & V. Berko, “Albert Geudens” in Dictionary of Belgian painters born between 1750 & 1875, Editions Laconti, Brussels, 1981, p. 311; Willem G. Flippo, “Albert Geudens” in Lexicon of the Belgian Romantic Painters, International Art Press, Antwerp, 1981, unpaginated; and Boudewijn Goossen, “Albert Geudens” in Le Dictionnaire des Peintres Belges, La Renaissance du Livre, Brussels, 1995, p. 475.
[2] Ivo Blom “Of Artists and Tourists: ‘Locating’ Holland in Two Early German Films” in A Second Life German Cinema’s First Decades, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 1996, p. 255.