Leon De Smet 1881-1966 Landscape Dimensions : 45 x 66 cm Dimensions : 17.72 x 25.98 inch 32 avenue Marceau 75008 Paris | +33 (0)1 42 61 42 10 | +33 (0)6 07 88 75 84 |
[email protected] | galeriearyjan.com Leon De Smet 1881-1966 32 avenue Marceau 75008 Paris | +33 (0)1 42 61 42 10 | +33 (0)6 07 88 75 84 |
[email protected] | galeriearyjan.com Leon De Smet 1881-1966 Biography Léon de Smet was born in Ghent in a family of artists; his father Jules de Smet was the owner of a firm of decorators and his brother Gustave was also a painter. Léon de Smet joined the Fine Art School in Ghent where he began his apprenticeship in 1993. In 1895 he studied paining with Jean Devlin and Jules van Biesbroeck. He settled in Laethem-Saint-Martin in 1906 and shared a studio with Albert Servaes and Fritz Van den Berghe. After that, he joined the Luminist circle Vie et Lumière, an artistic movement created in 1904 by Emile Claus, George Morren and Adrien-Joseph Heymans that gathered together the majority of the Belgian impressionists painters. In 1909, Léon de Smet exhibited at the Biennale in Venice, he obtained a great success. From that time, he became a recognized artist and won a silver medal at the international exhibition in Venice in 1911. In 1913 he won the first prize of the competition organized for the Universal Exhibition poster in Ghent. He had to go into exile in London during WWI. There he continued to paint and obtain some success during his exhibitions in Leicester and Burlington galleries.