Eugeen Van Mieghem (October 1, 1875-1930) was a Belgian artist born in the port of Antwerp.
As a boy Van Mieghem was confronted with the harsh reality of life at
the waterfront. Even at primary school he showed a
talent for drawing. He was introduced to the work
of Van Gogh,
Seurat, Meunier[?],
de Toulouse-Lautrec
and others at an exhibition organised by Flemish painter
and architect Henry van de Velde[?]
at the Antwerp Academy around 1892. An
idealism began to grow in him that he would never
renounce. He became the artist of the typical harbour folk:
sack porters, sack makers, emigrants, dockers, bargees
and tramps.
Van Mieghem had his first taste of real success at
'La Libre Esthétique' salon in Brussels, where his
pastels and drawings hung alongside works by
French impressionists such as Monet, Cézanne,
Pissarro, Renoir and
Vuillard[?].
Van Mieghem married Augustine Pautre in 1902.
At the end of November 1904 his young wife fell
ill. Van Mieghem depicted her in an impressive
series of drawings and pastels that rate alongside
similar work by such artists as Rembrandt (the
serie of Saskia) and Ferdinand Hodler[?] (Valentine
Godé). Grief-stricken at the death of his wife, it
was 1910 before Van Mieghem showed his work again.
After his first individual exhibition at the Royal
Society of Art of Antwerp in 1912 international
interest in his work mounted and group exhibitions
followed in Cologne and The Hague. In March 1919
he showed his wartime work in Antwerp. This
remarkable series of mainly drawings and pastels
met with the wide approval of art critics, who
compared this work to that of Steinlen[?],
Forain[?], and
Käthe Kollwitz[?]. After an article by his friend
and Flemish author
Willem Elsschot[?] appeared, Van Mieghem was also
able to show his wartime work in a gallery in
Scheveningen (The Netherlands). In 1929 he became a
teacher of life drawing at the Academy in Antwerp
and he participated in exhibitions every year
until his death in 1930.
In European social art of the turn of the century,
international art critics
compare his work to that of figures like Käthe
Kollwitz, de Toulouse-Lautrec and Steinlen. Van
Mieghem had no equal when it came down to drawing
and painting the lives of ordinary people, living
and working in an international seaport. When it
comes to capturing social reality, his work has
much of the power and authenticity of
Jean-François Millet's.
Like the precursor of social
art, Van Mieghem never had to leave his own
environment in search of subjects. The world was
on his doorstep.
In recent years Van Mieghem's work has been rediscovered
internationally. In 2000 a Steinlen retrospective
at the Picasso Museum[?] in Barcelona included seven of his works and brought
international recognition for his work. In 1993 a Van Mieghem Museum opened its doors in Antwerp (Beatrijslaan 8, B 2050 Antwerpen, tel. 32.3.211.03.30 and van.mieghem.museum@skynet.be) with a collection of 150 of his works.
