Émile Deckers (1885-1968)

Oil on canvas, signed by the master. Original frame, Maison Cardin, Algiers.

Émile Deckers was trained at the Academy of Fine Arts of Liège, then in Paris as a pupil of Carolus Duran and Évariste Carpentier. He obtains the first prize in anatomy and the first prize in painting in 1904, medalist of the Belgian government 1904 (Superior competition of painting according to living model in 1906) as well as the Donnay prize (travel grant). Twenty-one years later he was awarded first prize for historical composition and in 1911 he was appointed member of the jury of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. He was at the front throughout the First World War and made Knight of the Order of the Crown, holder of the Belgian medal for Victory and the commemoration of the defense of Liège.

He settled in Algiers in 1921 and became known there as an "orientalist" painter, a justified reputation that brought him fame. He paints in particular local genre scenes and portraits of young Kabyle, Tuareg or members of tribes from the south and the Atlas mountains. His style is similar to that of his predecessor: Édouard Herzig but in oil on canvas and not in gouache on paper. He produces large format portraits often in three or more views (his "trademark"), still very much in demand today by collectors.

From 1930 he divides his time between Algiers and Belgium. In 1940, he settles in the Belgian Congo which he will leave only in 1950. Of Belgian nationality, he stays in Algiers after June 1962 and will leave the city only in 1966, when he will return to Belgium in Verviers where he died on February 6, 1968.