"Intimacy" Hubert Malfait Oil on canvas cm 90 x 60

Certificate of authenticity. Hubert Malfait (Astene 1898-Laethem-Saint-Martin 1971) "Intimacy" oil on canvas (cm 90 x 60) (cm 114 x 84 with frame). Signed in the upper left: H Malfait. Hubert Malfait was born in Astene (Flanders) on December 25, 1898, and died in Laethem-Saint-Martin in 1971. Painter of landscapes and figures; he attended the Academy of Ghent under the direction of J.Delvin and G.Minne (1915-1922). He debuted in 1923 with an expressionist style. Although younger than the great masters of Flemish expressionism like Permeke, Gustave de Smet, Servaes,... he soon managed to create a considerable position alongside them. In 1931, Malfait abandoned this style to move towards "intimist animism". Then around the 1950s, he returned definitively to expressionist painting. He won the Pipijn Prize in 1922, the Second Rome Prize in 1923, and the Rubens Prize in 1929, which allowed him to travel to Paris where he frequented the studios of Chagall and Zadkine. In the same year, he also worked in Italy. Malfait was part of the second generation of artists from Laethem-Saint-Martin. His first solo exhibition dates back to 1927 at the "Centaure" gallery in Brussels, followed by numerous solo exhibitions in Antwerp, Ghent, Brussels,... He participated in the Universal Exhibitions of 1935 and 1958 in Brussels. He exhibited in Venice as part of three exhibitions entitled "Expressionism" in 1925, 1930, and 1952. After the Second World War, the artist undertook a trip to Brittany, Normandy, and Provence. In 1955, Malfait settled in Laethem-Saint-Martin. In 1968: Retrospective at the Ostend Museum. In 1973: Retrospective at the Deinze Museum. A painter who, as Urbain Van de Voorde wrote, "knew how to infuse his rural scenes with a personal vision and feeling of forms but above all found his language of color, the true soul of painting." Description: The painting described here, depicting a young naked woman absorbed in her thoughts, invites the viewer to investigate her intimacy in a calm and silent atmosphere. This nude, which belongs to the artist's "animist" period, dates back to the 1930s-40s. In a context where art is noisy, extreme, arrogant, "Animism" presents itself in a humble and moderate way, as a discrete and authentic movement. Realistic and spiritual, the artists who adhere to this artistic current believe that to represent a subject, it is essential to communicate with the internal and vital element that the latter contains and preserves. "For them, the soul is an omnipresent force of concentration and wonder that dwells in the artist and in what surrounds him. Effluences pass from one to the other. Between the two, between the soul of the one who contemplates and the soul of what is contemplated, lies the work, a screen that records the complex play of these multiple radiations." (Paul Haesaerts). In 1965, Urbain Van de Voorde wrote in his monograph on the artist: "... he had managed to achieve a synthesis between his tendency towards expressionism and the influence of intimism, the latter tempering the former. It can be said that it is in this fusion that the painter discovered his true path. For him, artistic salvation resided not in the excessive deformations of the first period but in the less aggressive formal interpretations, those which, while simplifying the image of nature, only slightly distort it." From the dark background, the white of the woman's body stands out, occupying the entire space of the canvas, reinforcing the evocative power of this harmonious presence. Works present in the following museums: Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Liège, Deinze, Ostend (MPAM), Mons, Saint-Nicolas, Courtrai and Grenoble, Menton Museums. Bibliography: Urbain Van De Voorde "Hubert Malfait" Ed. Meddens Brussels 1965. Paul Haesaerts "The Laethem-Saint-Martin School" Ed. Formes (pp.26,329,332,376,377,387, Plate 84) Bénézit Vol 7 (p.118) Paul Piron "PIRON: Dictionnaire des Artistes Plasticiens de Belgique des XIX et XX siècles" Ed. Art in Belgium (p.119) Andrée Dessert -Corvol "ARTO: Biographical Dictionary of Visual Arts in Belgium" (pp. 337-339) Condition: excellent. In faith: