Constant Permeke (Antwerp 1886-1952 Ostend) was one of the most important Belgian painters & visual artists of his time. Especially because of his innovative expressionist style. His father Henri Permeke was an accomplished sea and landscape painter and restorer of paintings. Constant received his first art lessons from him and helped in the studio. Later the family went on sea voyages until his father became the first curator of the Municipal Museum of Fine Arts. During his youth in Ostend, Permeke attended the academy in Bruges from 1903 to 1906, but he did not learn much.
During his service in Ghent he met Frits Van den Berghe, Gustave De Smet, Henri Puvrez, Léon De Smet, the art historian André de Ridder and the critic Paul Gustaaf Van Hecke. Strongly under the influence of "the prince of Flemish luminism" Emile Claus, the group of friends settled in Sint-Martens-Latem.
In March 1908, Permeke was allowed to leave the army and returned to Ostend. Gust De Smet also came to Ostend, and the two moved into an inn room together in the Kaaistraat. Confronted with the raw, hard fishing life of that time, they distanced themselves from the light coloring of Emile Claus in order to better capture the emotions that a scene evoked in their works. Belgian expressionism was born.
In the spring of 1909 Permeke returned to Latem's friends, but mainly painted with Albert Servaes. The mutual influence at that time was so strong that many works by the two painters are almost indistinguishable in a heavy and pasty touch. By the way, Servaes could already be called the "Father of Flemish Expressionism". At that time, Permeke took part in the Salon Internationale de Liège, where works by Monet, Renoir and even the early Picasso also hung. In 1911 he was admitted to the annual Salon of Art and Present in Antwerp.
In 1912 Constant Permeke married Maria Delaere from Poperinge, his "Marietje". The couple settled in the Vuurtorenwijk in Ostend. Léon Spilliaert became his closest neighbor here; the two exchanged a lot artistically. This is also where the first breakthrough of Permekian expressionism emerged in all its emotional charge: muted tonality, brutal design and daring distortions. According to him, the often used black gave Permeke's paintings the carrying capacity from which he, as it were, allowed his figures to be born. The color also represents the connection with the earth.
During the First World War, Permeke was drafted into the army. In 1918 he returned to Ostend and later to Devonshire, England. Here too he painted the landscape and the population, such as farmers and fishermen, as rough solid figures in a sober palette. These paintings convey a particularly joyless atmosphere.
In April 1919, the Permeke family, now with three children, returned to the fishing quarters in Ostend, where Gustave De Smet and Frits Van den Berghe - who had returned from the Netherlands - joined him.
From the 1920s his style changed under the influence of African art; not so much cubist but constructed. The loose brushstrokes made way for a tighter style with closed contours. This made his figures even more massive and almost colossal.
Between 1922 and 1924 he also regularly went to Astene to paint together with Frits Van den Berghe, where the works of the human figure became more abstract and the painting style became looser. When his third son, Mattheus, died in 1923, this also had an impact on his use of color; he subsequently worked mainly with black.
In 1928 Permeke decided to settle permanently in Jabbeke with the family and asked his friend Pierre Vandervoort to design a house for: "De Vier Winden". In Jabbeke, 'the farmer and his field' now dominated his work. The works of these years are again more strongly constructed and large in size with an almost baroque power.
In 1934 he received full international recognition during his participation in the "Venice Biennale". He had already represented Belgium in 1926, together with his friends Frits Van den Berghe and Gust De Smet, but this edition was mainly about Permeke himself. Afterwards he focused primarily on sculpting the human figure, which is not surprising, since he already depicted his figures as statues in his paintings. His style became increasingly polished.
The war period 1940-1944 became a tragedy for Permeke, both humanly and artistically. His son Paul was taken away by the Germans and would remain a prisoner of war throughout the war. Morally supported by Madame d'Ydewalle, he only resumed his creative activity to some extent in 1950 and made several beautiful paintings such as “The daily bread" and “The lady with the red gloves". At the suggestion of the French Fauvism painter Maurice de Vlaminck, he made a ten-day trip to Brittany with his son Paul in the spring of 1951, visiting Paul Gauguin's famous Pont-Aven. When he got home, he made seven Breton landscapes from memory. After this trip, cancer started to develop in his body and he died in the hospital in Ostend at the age of 65
Permeke wished that after his death his home and studio would be opened to the public as a museum; the family opened it on November 16, 1952. At the time, the estate consisted of 121 works by Permeke, but this has been supplemented over the years with work by Pierre Devos, Frits van den Berghe and Floris Jespers, among others. The Permeke Museum is now, together with the Ensor House, a satellite museum of the Mu.ZEE in Ostend.
