Maurice Xhrouet

Maurice Xhrouet (1892 - 1992), born with Verviers, was sculptor sculptor with Uccle (Brussels). Avant-gardist, preceded with biennial of Venice in 1922, it received the national Price of the Art schools of Belgium for the whole of its work in 1957. He was the close friend of the Flemish painter of Drogenbos, Felix De Boeck.

Mau Xhrouet writes in 1923: “More one admiration is large, plus the inferiority of the admiror is too. To be able to say itself without any self-conceit by looking at its work: it is well, is this step a larger happiness only to hear the congratulations of admirors? ”.

Its work

Joost De Geest, art critic, writing: “After the First war, the generation of the avant-garde aspired to a Community art of strict form, doubled better social intentions. But it proved to be illusory to believe that the company could accept this abstracted language, perceived as being theoretical. The crash landing and the collapse of the market of art, towards 1930, led to a return of the classic art (understand by there: figurative), while the fashionable version of the avant-garde, the Art déco, continued to establish its business success in the floating palates, the dwellings of luxury and the World Fairs.

Maurice Xhrouet, in the the Twenties belongs to certain a number of artistic circles like the Propeller, where one discusses with pure vehemence of figure and Community art. He will expose besides with this circle in 1923. In 1924, it takes part in Biennial of Venice, where it exposes some works Cubistes. In 1925, the Nervie magazine publishes of him a short biography. In November of the same year, it takes part in the exposure “a group of Peintres manufacturers” to the Ravenstein hotel to Brussels. It will take part then in the Exposure on decorative Arts to Monza with a stand of abstract art. In “the sculpture in Belgium 1830-1930”, one finds the following remark: “With Maurice Xhrouet, we reach the threshold of the extremism: if its groups are carried out according to the tendency cubist, they remain in spite of very readable in their balance”. Xhrouet is thus seen assigning a kind of position intermediate between the total Abstraction and what can still be included/understood by the public.

The international exhibitions and universal will give the opportunity to Xhrouet to let the freedom of its imagination be expressed. Thus one could admire works of Xhrouet to the International exhibition of Antwerp of 1930, on the esplanade of the Nations, his contribution to the House of gas of the World Fair of Brussels, in 1935, that of Paris in 1937, the International exhibition of Water to Liege in 1939. One can say that its production in the years' 20 and' 30 was connected curiously with what was regarded then at the international level as modernistic art.

In the current of the the Thirties, the style of Xhrouet evolves to a more figurative phase and knows the influence of the Egyptian art. In 1941, it will receive criticisms eulogistic for its exposure to the gallery Vé Be. In 1946, it receives the Braecke Price for its Chest which known a success then with the quadrennial Living room of Antwerp and the Palate of the Art schools of Brussels. In 1947, it receives the biennial Price of the Art schools for the whole of its work. He writes: “Work is not, with my direction, work of art that because of the generosity which gave birth to it, generosity which is in it and which must to some extent radiate with it to the spectator”. Maurice Lent wrote in 1952 in connection with Xhrouet: “I like his kneaded work of sensitivity”.

“By the soft way of the music of Bach, I find you how much detached of all that makes the daily life, which was always so distant from you who live rather among stars. Your interior vision of the things is your reward. The lines, the forms are registered in the middle of your heart which created them, during all your existence… In all affection and admiration, my two hands with yours”. Akarova, 1972.

Biography

Maurice Xhrouet is born with Verviers on December 6th 1892. At the six years age, it arrives at Brussels, the 192 of the street Royale, where his/her father opens the House Charles Xhrouet, manufactures Executives for Tables. The medium was favourable emulously to work the drawing and the sculpture. In same time, the Maurice young person is at the same time bathed in the company spirit of the time and the cultural and artistic tradition of his family. At 12 years, it is registered with the courses of the evening of the close Academy of Saint-Jose-ten-Noode regarded as progressist. With the great despair of his father, who would have wished it rather successor of his business, Maurice Xhrouet is registered in 1908 with the royal Académie of the Art schools of Brussels for a complete formation. He obtains there a series of first prices as well in drawing as in sculpture.

The mobilization of 1914 brings it in the university company on the face of the Yser. Seriously ravaged by an oral infection, it will be collected in April 1915 by the countess of the Vieuville to the castle of Tourdelin to Saint-Thual (Rennes). A house of the castle also early becomes its workshop. It there will draw, paint, carve about fifty works and portraits, for the majority still extremely borrowed academism. It will on the occasion to also travel towards Nantes, Lyon, Chambéry, Toulon, Paris, and to impregnate schools and artistic tendencies of the time.

In 1919, it returns to Brussels and wife Caroline De Kesel, girl of the painter and Gantese sculptor, Prix of Rome, Karel De Kesel, which it knew with the Academy of Brussels pre-war period. This same year, it meets the painter Felix De Boeck, in its farm of Drogenbos with which it will not cease sharing friendship and artistic step.

In its first workshop Fitted of Waterloo, in My Countryside (Ixelles), it breaks with the received traditions and is expressed in a new way. The line, the color and the form will give themselves a new appearance. To release its art of the material constraints completely, it takes as food art, the creation of drawings of embroidery for various manufactures of linen room.

In 1921, it takes part in its first exposure in the large gallery of the royal Museum of Art and History, at the sides of the painter Marcel Baugniet. Its studies of the abstract art are of an astonishing fascination; it passes from the model to the academic sketch to then start true research of the modernistic expression . It takes part then in various circles of avant-garde. One writes of him: “… perhaps the sculpture of Xhrouet will inform it the public on what must be the true decorative sculpture and at the same time true architecture, because it expresses really more than it does not seem to want to express and contains in it the standard of the construction of architecture”.

In 1924, Maurice Xhrouet settles to the 45 of the street Robert Scott, in Uccle, in a doubled house of a workshop, built by the architect Hoeben in the modernistic lines of the time. It continues its research there, often destroying produced work as soon as the posed plastic problem seems to him solved.

In the the Thirties, Maurice Xhrouet seems to make the synthesis of his years of research and integrates in his work the influences of the Egyptian art: “The stylization of works of Xhrouet by no means prevents them from remaining “in the life”. It is there a “result” of an astonishing sobriety that few artists on our premises can reach… ”.

In 1946, it obtains the Price Pierre Braecke for his “Chest”, then in 1947, the biennial Price of the Art schools for the whole of its work. Henri Kerels writes in the newspaper the Lantern of this same year: “… Maurice Xhrouet is the sculptor who can give to his creations a decorative direction high all in their preserving a deeply human character. Its design purely and only sculptural guide its hand towards a constructive simplification of volumes and aims at giving us full and harmonious works. This reasoned examination leads to the synthesis and reinforces the expression. There exists of Xhrouet of the small heads of children who are great sculptures. These effigies marvelously make softness ingenuous and the mischievousness of the kids. Its portraits of adults are deep, its naked worthy and gracious, its noble animals. A calm life internally animated the general information of its works. The bust larger than natural of the poet Edmond Vandercamen, contains all qualities: distinction, expression, interior life, simplification, decorative direction, which we make a point of underlining… ”.

In the the Fifties, it will continue its work while taking part in particular in the circle Uccle Center Article It will be interested also, more particularly, with the sculpture of outdoor while taking part in the Biennial main roads of “the Sculpture of Outdoor” organized in the gardens of the House of Érasme with Anderlecht. It exposes to it to the sides of Akarova and works of the queen Elisabeth of Belgium, protective of arts, with whom it must have known a happy convalescence in Rennes of 1915 to 1919. It will also take part with his friend, the Architecte Jose Franssen with reflections and achievements to integrate the image in the architecture of the time whose one will be able to see an example in Brussels (Uccle), which occurred Brugmann, house Brugmann.

Maurice Xhrouet will carry out his last sculptural work in 1960, at the 68 years age. He will then continue his work in painting. Touched little by little by blindness, it will leave its workshop of Uccle in 1980, at the 87 years age, and will die out peacefully with Linkebeek in 1992, in its hundredth year.

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