Notes

Raveel was a Belgian painter, whose style evolved throughout his career, from abstract to figurative. He studied at the Municipal Academy of Deinze and at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Ghent. His teachers included Hubert Malfait and Jos Verdeghem. In the early 1950s, through his friend Hugo Claus, he became acquainted with painters from the Cobra group such as Karel Appel and Corneille. However, he wanted to take different paths with his paintings. In 1962 he stayed for three months in Albisola Mare (Italy) where he worked and exhibited with artists such as Lucio Fontana and Asger Jorn.

In the second half of the 1950s he evolved towards a more abstract painting that had its roots in the experience of the organic, the vegetative, the animal.

For his artistic activity and his contribution to art history, Roger Raveel received honorable mentions at the Prize for Young Belgian Painting (1958 and 1960) and a distinction in the Europa Prize (1962), the International Joost vanden Vondel Prize (1983), the Golden Medal of Honor of the Flemish Council (1992), the noble title of Ridder (1995) and the Van Acker Prize (1996).

In this painting we see Raveel’s take on the landscape of Tourves, a small village in the south of France near Marseille.