Everything about Frans Masereel totally explained
Frans Masereel (
July 31,
1889 -
January 3,
1972) was a
Flemish painter and is considered one of the greatest
woodcut artists of the twentieth century. He was educated by the
Ghent painter
Jean Delvin at the Ghent Academy of Fine Art. He settled in France in
1910, then moved to Switzerland in
1914 then in
1921 to
Paris and later
Berlin where his closest creative friend was
George Grosz. After
World War II, Masereel lived in
Avignon and
Nice, France. His greatest work is generally said to be the wordless
graphic novel Mon Livre d'Heures (
Passionate Journey). He completed over 20 other wordless novels in his career. His work has strongly influenced the work of
Clifford Harper.
There is now a Frans Masereel Centre (Frans Masereel Centrum for Graphix) in the small village of
Kasterlee in Belgium.
Biography
The painter and graphic artist Frans Masereel, born in the Belgian
Blankenberge in 1889, moved to Ghent in 1896, where he began to study at the
Ecole des Beaux-Arts at the class of
Jean Delvin at the age of 18.
In 1909 he went on trips to
England and
Germany, which inspired him to first
etchings and
woodcuts. From 1911 on Masereel settled in Paris for four years and then he emigrated to
Switzerland, where he worked as a graphic artist for various journals and magazines. The woodcut series, mainly of
sociocritical content and of
expressionistic form concept, made Masereel internationally known. Among theses were the so-called image novels like
Passion eines Menschen,
Mein Stundenbuch,
Die Sonne,
Die Idee and
Geschichte ohne Worte, which dated all from c. 1920. At that time Masereel also drew illustrations for famous works of world literature by
Thomas Mann,
Emile Zola and
Stefan Zweig. In 1921 the artist returned to Paris, were his famous street scenes, the Montmartre-paintings, came into existence. Since 1925 he lived near
Boulogne-sur-Mer, where he painted predominantly coast areas, harbour views as well as portraits of sailors and fishermen. During the 1930s the number of illustrated books and single woodcuts decreased. In 1940 the artist fled from Paris and lived in several cities in Southern France. At the end of World War II Masereel was able to resume his resting artistic work and produced woodcuts and paintings. Since 1946 he worked for several years as a teacher at the
Staatliche Schule für Kunst und Kunstgewerbe in
Saarbrücken. In 1949 Masereel settled in
Nice.
In the following years until 1968 several series of woodcuts were published, which differ from his earlier ‚novels in picture' in basing on variations of a subject instead of being a continuing narrative. Furthermore he designed decorations and costumes for numerous theatre productions. The artist was honoured in numerous exhibitions and became a member of several academies. Frans Masereel died in Avignon in 1972 and was entombed in Ghent. The cultural organization
Masereelfonds was named after him.
Influence
Famed American graphic novel creator
Will Eisner cited Masereel as an influence on his work.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Frans Masereel'.
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