Gaston Haustrate (1878-1949) Pêches et vases de fleurs

Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1917 lower left
Dimensions: H. 65.5 x W. 55 cm (with gilded wooden frame: H. 80 cm x W. 70 cm)

Gaston Haustrate was a leading member of the Sillon, a Belgian visual arts movement founded in 1893 in Brussels under the presidency of Gustave Max Stevens. Born in Everbeek in 1878, Gaston Haustrate apprenticed at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts. In 1899, he joined the Sillon movement, whose aim was to counterbalance neo-impressionism and symbolism, and later luminism.

Haustrate and his fellow students wanted a return to naturalistic painting, inspired by the Flemish realist tradition. Among the artists of this movement were Fernand Toussaint and Léon Spilliaert for a while. The sillonist painters quickly turned to light, brilliant painting, and drew closer to the works of the Brabant Fauvists. Haustrate painted mainly lively landscapes, genre scenes, portraits and urban views.

This magnificent still life is a rare work in more ways than one; here Haustrate gives us a subject with which he was unfamiliar, a rich composition of brightly colored peaches and bouquets on a pedestal table. This is truly a Fauve painting, even if it was produced in 1917, after the first years of the movement organized around Henri Matisse in the first decade of the twentieth century. This large-scale painting is notably luminous in Haustrate's oeuvre, which more often features compositions in more subdued colors. Here, Haustrate has used a swift, skilful touch, alternating a light, almost transparent treatment of the background with powerful impastos to highlight the flowers and fruit.

This still life in oil is in absolutely perfect condition, on its original canvas and presented in a beautifully restored antique gilded wooden frame.

Museums where works by Gaston Haustrate can be found :
Brussels at Musée d'Ixelles and Musée Charlier, Ostend at Musée d'Art aan Zee