Jacques Courtens

Jacques Courtens Belgian painter, born with Brussels Saint-Jose-ten-Noode on April 24th, 1926, died in Fatty the Maritime Alps, France on September 23rd, 1988. Buried with the cemetery of Saint-Cézaire-on-Siagne the Maritime Alps at the sides of his/her friend the type-setter and leader Igor Markevitch (1913 - 1983). Third generation of painters with his brother Pierre Courtens, wire of Hermann Courtens, small son of Franz Courtens.

Biography

As of more the young age draws and paints in the workshop of his/her father and large father who are his first professors. The exodus in 1940 leads it to Nice with his/her mother, it attends there the School of decorative Arts 1941-42. In 1945 it draws the unloading of Allied in Normandy. In 1946 it finds his mother in Paris, data base Raspail and painted with his Pierre brother. 1947 Workshop street St Jacques, first exposure, with his/her Pierre brother under the pseudonym of the Suros brothers, with the Gallery Maurs, which occurred Montaigne, Paris 1948 Workshop in Amsterdam 1950 Young Belgian painting Palate of Beautiful arts, Brussels 1950 to 1960 Painted in Brussels, 1960 to 1980 Traverse Spain, draws, in parallel trade of antiquities to the Large Fine sand in Brussels 1972 Built its Workshop-Museum with Fatty A.M. France 1973 Painted with frescos the walls and ceilings of three parts: " Frescos of Santiago de Grasse" 1973 to 1988 Fatty: painted the essence of its work. Create the poster for the first world one of " This Crowned bonheur" , for the celebration of the 5th birthday of the reopening of the Theater Princess Grace of Monaco in 1986.

Many exposures in France, Belgium Luxembourg. Great retrospective with the town hall of Brussels and palate of the Governor of the Brabant, under patronage and visits Reine Fabiola, February 1992. Works with the Province of the Brabant, museum of Beautiful arts of Mouscron (Belgium) and collectors deprived in Belgium, France, Netherlands, the United States, Moscow

Many reports T.V Monaco, Nice, Brussels, Antwerp, Luxembourg, Film: Universe of Jacques Courtens telefilm of Grigori Amnouel and Alexandre Brussilovsky - EuroAsk film Moscow 1991 Brussels TV 1993 Stories of Brussels: " The Dynasty of Brussels of Courtens" by OJ Gerard

In 1998 the " was created; Courtens d' Or" for the First Festival of Arts and Russian Cinemas in Cannes. Reward handing-over this first year with Ina Tchourikova, celebrates Russian actress for the whole of its work, by Renee Saint-Cyr military school and Isabelle Courtens. The festival of Arts and Cinemas Russian and handing-over of the " Courtens d' Or" take place from now on in Nice with the National theater of Nice each year in October - November.

Extracts of texts

“Its immense work which exalte the swirl, the hurricane of the impulses between sky and ground, dream and reality is registered just after James Ensor in the line of the prophetic Flemings” Michel Desforges, Le Figaro the Mediterranean , December 3rd, 1988, page 27

“The work of Jacques Courtens was born from an ascetic vision and anchorite from art, of a vision which makes of him a prophet whose voice is not lost in the desert” Richard Audry, Tageblat Luxembourg 10/8/1979

“A dazzling symphony of the insane love muzzling the mort" the Month of Marie-Claire , Brussels March 1992

“One can be only struck, physically, with the more close friend of his heart, by this " expression picturale" , so different, so original that the glance can be hung up again with no reference mark, with any known measurement… because we are in relation to anything else, we touch the echo of a secrecy which saw of each one of us. ” Victor Varjac, the Rose, the Adventurer and the Dreamer , 2007, page 5

“I did not meet Jacques Courtens that only once in this residence - museum where it accommodated me one evening with this dash from which his friends profited so strongly and who, of not to doubt, formed an essential share of his personality. At his sides, I had the privilege to discover astonishing creations born of a brush inspired, dazing swirl of oneiric forms and colors which belong only to him. This evening will remain marked in my memory. Alain Decaux of the French Academy, Jacques Courtens Retrospective of work painted. Drawings , Snoeck Ducaju in Zoon, Ghent, 1991

Luminous paradoxes To think of Jacques Courtens and his work, it is to meet surprisingly fertile paradoxes unceasingly. Wire and grandson of painters, it has a personality of a total autonomy. It has deep roots, and it carries the freest glance on the beings and the world. It has the genius of the color, but it has as much the genius of the drawing. It paints fabrics, but it creates as a painter the walls of his house and it as well sometimes happens to him to illustrate the music as the reasons testify some to compact the discs to Mozart or Markevitch.

One likes to see and re-examine what is of him like if, struck initially by the obviousness of the dash one needed to find of it the image which lasts. See these at the same time suggested and infinite movements, these departures of one does not know where towards one does not know where, then to re-examine the smile which says the impulse of it, the gesture which suggests the result of it.

All, at his place, surprisingly mixes the suggestion and the precision. This violonist coils herself in a swirl, but it is felt that its fingers are sure; this flutist who walks while playing says us that it is happiness and contemplation all the same.

One feels, as much as one analyzes it, this creative joy which was worth so many friends to him. I like to think of Micheline and Julien Bertheau, which was close to him in Grasse as they are close to me in my heart in Brussels.

I read again what Jacques Courtens said and which one noted with the vol. It is all, thinks to him at once one. The secrecy which makes of an image a work and not a reproduction? “I sought the wire between the life and death, the memory of an image and not the image itself”. The vocation of the creation which exceeds what it translates? “The words which leave the book are the essence of the thought”.

Strange miracle that Jacques Courtens, his art and its universe. The mystery in full light. Georges Sion, Brussels, honorary perpetual secretary of the Academy of Language and Literature Frenchwomen. Jacques Courtens Retrospective of work painted. Drawings , Snoeck Ducaju in Zoon, Ghent, 1991

“… The step of Jacques Courtens is that of an ascetic to the eyes of light, pressed by the time which passes. Its pictorial production is the twenty years history of baited work, between the realization of its residence, of the frescos which decorate it and its many drawings and fabrics. The art of Jacques Courtens is the history of a passion, those which summarize a life. The artist seems to break a Cartesian geometry and sets up as a juggler, fully conscious of the mystery of Alfred Hitchcock, it will not hesitate to slip subtly within his works, delivering thus moderately his impulses and his desires…

… Jacques Courtens plays with his roots and gives a new dash to the key expressionnist inherited his Flanders all while adding the sensuality and the take-off to him drawn at his Mediterranean host: Fragonard. From this synchrèse as well philosophical as artistic, the Courtens bird takes its take-off…

… The worship of dialectical, the dichotomic play, will make of Jacques Courtens the first expressionnist méditerranéo-Flemish…

… Mû by a desire of truth, Jacques Courtens chose Freedom for the greatest happiness of Article passion always guided this " Small Prince" painting of which subjects emergent of a made magic confluence of Woman, Life, Love and Colors. Its pallet sings the union of a expressionnism come from Flanders, where the impetuous gesture modulates space, and of the impressionist glacis of its aïeux. Ciels azuréens take shape, of the faces to the soles of emergent wind. As an informed poet, Jacques Courtens invites us to discover the direction of the Absolute in each one of the epic of the life…” Olivier Clynckemaillie, conservative of the museum of the Art schools de Mouscron, " And in Arcadia ego… " 2001

Exposures

the 1947 Brothers Suros (Pierre and Jacques Courtens), Pierre-Maur gallery, front Montaigne, Paris.
I979 October, Kredietbank S.A., Luxembourg
I980 June, Museum Leon de Smet, Deurle, Ghent, Belgium
I98I October, Faculty Club, Leuwen, Belgium
I982 March, International Center of Fatty, Fatty, France
I984 December-January I985 De Breughel at our days, Malmaison, Cannes, France
I987 March-June, Masks of artists, Malmaison, Cannes, France
I987 April, tourist office, Biot, France
I988 July, Grand Prix European of Arts and the Letters (Invited honor) Mediterranean University center, Nice, France
1990 June, Grand Prix European of Arts and the Letters (Invited honor) Palate of the Congresses Fatty, France
I992 February, Retrospective Jacques Courtens, provincial Palate of the Brabant and town hall Brussels
I993 July-September, Retrospective Palate of the Congresses and Homage to Igor Markevitch Fragonard Villa-Museum, Fatty, France
I993 September-October, Living room of the Painters of XVIe, town hall of XVIe, Paris
1998 August-September Within the framework of the 90e birthday of Cape d' Ail “Homage to Jacques Courtens”, Exposure Tourist bureau and Media library of Cape d' Ail, Cape d' Ail, France
1998 September-October, Rhul Casino - Room of the plays, Nice, France
2001 March-May, Retrospective Jacques Courtens, Arts center Marius Staquet, Mouscron, Belgium.

Selective bibliography

Anne Courtois, Jacques Courtens Retrospective of work painted. Drawings , Snoeck Ducaju in Zoon, Ghent, 1991
Aurélie Dandoy, Universe of Jacques Courtens, Test on the drawings , ED. D.C.G., Vallauris, 1993
Olivier Clynckemaillie, Jacques Courtens “And in Arcadia ego…”, ED. Museum of the Art schools de Mouscron, 2001
Isabelle Courtens, That the dream remains! Life and work of a painter-poet, Jacques Courtens , ED. D.C.G., Vallauris, 2005, ISBN 2-916118-00-4
Victor Varjac, the Rose the Adventurer and the Dreamer , ED. D.C.G. Vallauris, 2007, ISBN 2-916118-02-0

Jacques Courtens

Biography

Extracts of texts

Exposures

Selective bibliography

External bond