Louis Dewis
Encyclopedia
Louis Dewis was a Belgian
Post-Impressionist painter
, who lived most of his adult life in France
.
, Belgium
, the son of Isidore Louis Dewachter and Eloise Desmaret Dewachter. He spent his formative years in Liege
where his closest boyhood friend was Richard Heintz (1871–1929), who also became an internationally known landscape artist.
Although the name "Dewachter" may have Flemish
roots, Dewachter always considered himself a Walloon
.
Young Louis' love of art could not be deterred. It could, however, be overwhelmed by business and family responsibilities
As the eldest son, Louis was expected to take over the family business, a chain of men's clothing stores called Maison Dewachter. This was a duty that his father would not allow him to shirk. Dewis would come to manage the store in Bordeaux
but there were Maison Dewachters in cities across France and Belgium, usually run locally by one cousin or another. Louis would bear this responsibility until after his father's death and the conclusion of World War I
.
When his younger brother lost a small fortune gambling, it fell to Louis to make good on the enormous debt. This would take him several years.
He signed his works “Louis Dewis” , because his father refused to allow him to sully the family name by associating it with such a frivolous undertaking.
Because he didn't need the money — and because of his father's opposition — Dewis did not promote his art in his young adulthood.
Louis Dewachter married Elisabeth Florigni (1873 - 25 August 1952).
Elisabeth was a Bordeaux socialite and the daughter of Joseph Jules Florigni (1842 - 14 April 1919) and Rose Lesfargues Palmyre Florigni (1843 - 11 September 1917).
Jules Florigni was the publisher of the Bordeaux regional newspaper, Le Petit Gironde and Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.
There was a feeling among some members of the Florigni family, which traced its roots back to the court of Catherine de' Medici
, that "Babette" had "married down".
Dewis' older daughter, Yvonne Marie (1898 - 1966 in St. Petersburg, Florida), married a young American army officer and medical doctor just after World War I and eventually moved to the States.
In her memoirs, Yvonne remembers that in the early years of Dewis' career, her mother regarded her father's painting with benign indifference. She writes that Elisabeth Dewachter was pleased with her husband's choice of "hobbies" in one sense, telling her friends, "at least it's not noisy."
As the years passed, Elisabeth took more interest. It was she who maintained Dewis' scrapbook of critical reviews for three decades.
His younger daughter and only other child, Andrée Marguerite Elisabeth (24 September 1903 - 11 May 2002 in Paris), married businessman Charles Jérôme Ottoz, who proved to be less than supportive of his talented father-in-law.
A serious student of art, Andrée was passionate in her admiration of her father's work. She was so emotionally involved in his painting that one day Dewis wondered aloud whether his daughter would have loved him as much, "if I'd been a grocer". Years later, Andrée tearfully recalled assuring her father that she would.
Dewis began to exhibit about 1916, shortly after his father's death. He was 44 years old.
In 1917, he helped organize Le Salon franco-belge in the Bordeaux Public Garden. It was a charity event for the benefit of Belgian war refugees sponsored by the Belgian Benevolent Society of the South West and the Girondin Artists. It was at this exhibition that the art of Louis Dewis would first draw serious attention from some prominent art critics of the era.
Early reviews noted Dewis' "warm and harmonious" use of color and his "marvelous play of light and the most entrancing symphonies".
From this period until his death in Biarritz
in 1946, Dewis' landscapes were shown regularly at major exhibitions across western Europe. They attracted favorable reviews in the international press, purchases from major museums and the highest decorations from the governments of three countries. However, the highest achievement of fame eluded him.
True, Dewis had finally escaped the dictates of his overbearing father that had stymied his career for almost three decades. He was now free to focus on painting. He could spend more time in the studio in his family's large apartment at 36 Rue de St-Cathérine over the Maison Dewachter in Bordeaux. But, his career would be marked by uncommon misfortune. As his daughter, Andrée, would say many years later, "Dad had hard luck!"
, Georges Petit
, was impressed by the Belgian's work in Bordeaux. He said of Dewis, "oh, he's a gentle one".
Petit's support could be life-changing. Here was a man who had attained the highest degree of success and influence in his profession. Petit's historic Expositions internationales de Peinture had featured works by Claude Monet
, Camille Pissarro
, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
, Alfred Sisley
and James McNeill Whistler
.
Petit scolded Dewis that he was wasting his life "selling clothes". He urged Dewis to sell his interest in Maison Dewachter and move his family from Bordeaux to Paris
. The renowned dealer and owner of Galerie Georges Petit told him, "come paint for me in Paris and I will make you famous".
Dewis was on his own... and he was no self-promoter.
He found himself in Paris without a sponsor. He, of course, had resources from the sale of his business. So, he rented an atelier and began painting for public exhibition.
From the beginning in Paris, Dewis' work was highly regarded and well reviewed, but it was never heavily promoted.
He had decided that Petit's legendary prowess as a marchand d'art was the perfect complement to his own talents. But, now totally independent, Dewis simply did not have the drive—or the desire—to achieve commercial success.
And, at this juncture of his life, Dewis was to encounter another antagonist. Dewis' son-in-law, Jérôme Ottoz, was a highly successful businessman who resented his talented and (gallingly) more famous beau-père. Ottoz (also Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur) dominated the timid artist... at one point talking Dewis out of accepting a lucrative offer of sponsorship by another Parisian art dealer.
Eventually, Dewis reconciled himself to his fate. And, happily so. He was perfectly content painting what he wanted to paint... and not producing what was in fashion or what art promoters thought would "sell".
He told his family, "I paint as the bird sings"... for the pure joy of expressing his emotions.
Dewis exhibited throughout France and Belgium in 1920s and 30s, as well as in Germany
, Switzerland
and Tunisia
, then a French colony. Collectors and museums from Europe
, South America
and Japan
purchased his work.
He was named Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.
His art was honored in Paris' Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937)
.
Dewis was a Lauréat of the Société des Artistes Français
, an associate member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, a founding member of the Nouveau Salon and of the Société des Peintres du Paris Moderne and of the Société Royale des Beaux-Arts of Belgium, among others.
Dewis and his family fled Paris for the South West shortly before the Nazi occupation of 1940, initially staying with relatives in Bayonne.
. An American was heading back to the United States and selling a large house with lovely gardens that he had named for his wife: Villa Pat. The family purchased the home and it was here that Dewis would paint for the last seven years of his life.
Biarritz wasn't far from Bordeaux, where Dewis had lived for more than 30 years from the 1880s up to the late 1910s.
He was once again inspired by the countryside of the Pays Basque.
Since travel was greatly limited during the occupation, Dewis often found his subjects within his own garden, in nearby parks and along the Atlantic coast.
Louis Dewis died of cancer at Villa Pat in late 1946. His passing was lamented in major French newspapers and reported in The New York Times
.
He was buried in the family tomb at Bordeaux's Cimetière de la Chartreuse :fr:Cimetière de la Chartreuse.
was her home from 1935 until her death in 2002. The spacious apartment, just a few blocks from the Parc Monceau
, occupied the entire top floor of a 19th century building.
Andrée had made many extended visits to Biarritz during her father's illness. After he died, she was intent on preserving everything related to his artistic career. She carefully crated up the entire contents of his atelier at the Villa Pat. Since she would be staying with her widowed mother in Biarritz for a while, she shipped the crates to Paris for safekeeping in the temporary custody of a favorite nephew, the noted architect Édouard Niermans
(1903–1984); his father Édouard-Jean Niermans (1859–1928) :fr:Édouard-Jean Niermans, the so-called architect of the "Café Society
", had married Dewis' sister.
Eventually, the boxes would be transferred to the attic of her co-propriété and placed in a locked room that was originally designed as maid's quarters. There the sturdy wooden boxes would sit, untouched, for nearly 50 years.
But now, it was all locked away and collecting dust. Jérôme had absolutely no interest in any effort to construct a legacy for his deceased rival.
As the years passed, Andrée had all but given up hope that her beloved father might be remembered.
By the mid-1990s, Jérôme was dead. Through a chance conversation with a visiting great nephew from the States (a grandson of her sister Yvonne), the then 92-year-old Andrée and the young American opened the crates and immediately resolved to return Dewis' work to the public.
The more than 400 paintings and hundreds of sketches that they found were catalogued. Experts were retained to evaluate the vast collection and what were judged to be the most outstanding pieces were cleaned and properly framed for public exhibition.
The effort culminated in the exhibition Dewis Rediscovered at the Courthouse Galleries in Portsmouth, Virginia
in 1998. It was the first public showing of Dewis' art in more than half a century.
Dr. Linda McGreevy wrote essays for the catalogues for the first two Dewis exhibits in America. McGreevy, a Professor of Art History and Criticism and the Chair of the Art Department at Old Dominion University
in Norfolk, Virginia
, has a special interest in French art between the two world wars. She described how Dewis' art was rediscovered in the attic of the Paris flat of Dewis/Dewachter's daughter:
"On the walls of the apartment in which she'd lived for over fifty years were works not only by her father but by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot. During the course of this visit, and others over the next several months, [Andrée] recalled that there were probably more of her father's work stored in the attic, though she figured they'd probably all rotted away inasmuch as they'd been there since his death in 1946. What they found were... crates that, while caked in dust, the paintings themselves were in remarkably good condition. And stored in the ceiling were still more rolled canvases, numerous sketchbooks, journals, even his palette.
"Louis Dewis was hardly an unknown artist in his time, but then again, he was no Monet or Degas either (both of whom he knew intimately). Louis Dewis' work resembles most closely that of Corot, who was his strongest influence, except that it tends to borrow from the Impressionists a more resplendent use of color. Dewis painted mostly landscapes, those of the Belgian towns and countryside he knew all his life. But by the end of WW II, the popular art styles of the time had not only changed drastically but the art world he'd known had fled Paris entirely. When he died, it was as if he took his life's work with him, except for less than a dozen examples in family hands in this country, and the few on the walls of his daughter's apartment in Paris. However, thanks to the perseverance of [Dewis' American great-grandson] and... the Portsmouth Art Museum, the work of Louis Dewis, and perhaps his spirit too, have returned from the dead..."
Since their rediscovery in 1995, more than 100 of Dewis' paintings found in his daughter's attic have been cleaned and framed and are lent to museums for the public to enjoy.
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
Post-Impressionist painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, who lived most of his adult life in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
.
Early life
Dewis was born Isidore Louis Dewachter in MonsMons
Mons is a Walloon city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut, of which it is the capital. The Mons municipality includes the old communes of Cuesmes, Flénu, Ghlin, Hyon, Nimy, Obourg, Baudour , Jemappes, Ciply, Harmignies, Harveng, Havré, Maisières, Mesvin, Nouvelles,...
, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, the son of Isidore Louis Dewachter and Eloise Desmaret Dewachter. He spent his formative years in Liege
Liège (province)
Liège is the easternmost province of Belgium and belongs to the Walloon Region. It is an area of French and German ethnicity. It borders on the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and in Belgium the provinces of Luxembourg, Namur, Walloon Brabant , and those of Flemish Brabant and Limburg . Its...
where his closest boyhood friend was Richard Heintz (1871–1929), who also became an internationally known landscape artist.
Although the name "Dewachter" may have Flemish
Flemish Community
The term Flemish Community has two distinct, though related, meanings:...
roots, Dewachter always considered himself a Walloon
Walloons
Walloons are a French-speaking people who live in Belgium, principally in Wallonia. Walloons are a distinctive community within Belgium, important historical and anthropological criteria bind Walloons to the French people. More generally, the term also refers to the inhabitants of the Walloon...
.
Parental disapproval & burdensome responsibilities
Louis' successful merchant father was embarrassed that his son would waste his time with something as useless as painting. In a vain attempt to break his young son of this "bad habit", the elder Dewachter would, on occasion, throw away the boy’s canvases, paints and brushes.Young Louis' love of art could not be deterred. It could, however, be overwhelmed by business and family responsibilities
As the eldest son, Louis was expected to take over the family business, a chain of men's clothing stores called Maison Dewachter. This was a duty that his father would not allow him to shirk. Dewis would come to manage the store in Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
but there were Maison Dewachters in cities across France and Belgium, usually run locally by one cousin or another. Louis would bear this responsibility until after his father's death and the conclusion of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
When his younger brother lost a small fortune gambling, it fell to Louis to make good on the enormous debt. This would take him several years.
Sunday painter
Through these travails, Louis Dewachter maintained an atelier in his home and was essentially a Sunday painter.He signed his works “Louis Dewis” , because his father refused to allow him to sully the family name by associating it with such a frivolous undertaking.
Because he didn't need the money — and because of his father's opposition — Dewis did not promote his art in his young adulthood.
Family
Elisabeth was a Bordeaux socialite and the daughter of Joseph Jules Florigni (1842 - 14 April 1919) and Rose Lesfargues Palmyre Florigni (1843 - 11 September 1917).
Jules Florigni was the publisher of the Bordeaux regional newspaper, Le Petit Gironde and Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.
There was a feeling among some members of the Florigni family, which traced its roots back to the court of Catherine de' Medici
Catherine de' Medici
Catherine de' Medici was an Italian noblewoman who was Queen consort of France from 1547 until 1559, as the wife of King Henry II of France....
, that "Babette" had "married down".
Dewis' older daughter, Yvonne Marie (1898 - 1966 in St. Petersburg, Florida), married a young American army officer and medical doctor just after World War I and eventually moved to the States.
In her memoirs, Yvonne remembers that in the early years of Dewis' career, her mother regarded her father's painting with benign indifference. She writes that Elisabeth Dewachter was pleased with her husband's choice of "hobbies" in one sense, telling her friends, "at least it's not noisy."
As the years passed, Elisabeth took more interest. It was she who maintained Dewis' scrapbook of critical reviews for three decades.
His younger daughter and only other child, Andrée Marguerite Elisabeth (24 September 1903 - 11 May 2002 in Paris), married businessman Charles Jérôme Ottoz, who proved to be less than supportive of his talented father-in-law.
A serious student of art, Andrée was passionate in her admiration of her father's work. She was so emotionally involved in his painting that one day Dewis wondered aloud whether his daughter would have loved him as much, "if I'd been a grocer". Years later, Andrée tearfully recalled assuring her father that she would.
Finally, a career begins
Dewis began to exhibit about 1916, shortly after his father's death. He was 44 years old.
In 1917, he helped organize Le Salon franco-belge in the Bordeaux Public Garden. It was a charity event for the benefit of Belgian war refugees sponsored by the Belgian Benevolent Society of the South West and the Girondin Artists. It was at this exhibition that the art of Louis Dewis would first draw serious attention from some prominent art critics of the era.
Early reviews noted Dewis' "warm and harmonious" use of color and his "marvelous play of light and the most entrancing symphonies".
From this period until his death in Biarritz
Biarritz
Biarritz is a city which lies on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast, in south-western France. It is a luxurious seaside town and is popular with tourists and surfers....
in 1946, Dewis' landscapes were shown regularly at major exhibitions across western Europe. They attracted favorable reviews in the international press, purchases from major museums and the highest decorations from the governments of three countries. However, the highest achievement of fame eluded him.
True, Dewis had finally escaped the dictates of his overbearing father that had stymied his career for almost three decades. He was now free to focus on painting. He could spend more time in the studio in his family's large apartment at 36 Rue de St-Cathérine over the Maison Dewachter in Bordeaux. But, his career would be marked by uncommon misfortune. As his daughter, Andrée, would say many years later, "Dad had hard luck!"
The opportunity of a lifetime
The influential French art dealerArt dealer
An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art. Art dealers' professional associations serve to set high standards for accreditation or membership and to support art exhibitions and shows.-Role:...
, Georges Petit
Georges Petit
Georges Petit was a French art dealer, a key figure in the Paris art world and an important promoter and cultivator of Impressionist artists.-Early career:...
, was impressed by the Belgian's work in Bordeaux. He said of Dewis, "oh, he's a gentle one".
Petit's support could be life-changing. Here was a man who had attained the highest degree of success and influence in his profession. Petit's historic Expositions internationales de Peinture had featured works by Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
, Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...
, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...
, Alfred Sisley
Alfred Sisley
Alfred Sisley was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life, in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape en plein air...
and James McNeill Whistler
James McNeill Whistler
James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born, British-based artist. Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo "art for art's sake". His famous signature for his paintings was in the shape of a stylized butterfly possessing a long stinger...
.
Petit scolded Dewis that he was wasting his life "selling clothes". He urged Dewis to sell his interest in Maison Dewachter and move his family from Bordeaux to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. The renowned dealer and owner of Galerie Georges Petit told him, "come paint for me in Paris and I will make you famous".
Disaster
Dewis relented. He sold his business and relocated to Paris. But, within months of his arrival, Georges Petit was dead at the age of 64.Dewis was on his own... and he was no self-promoter.
Painting for himself
In turning his career over to Petit, Dewis had taken the biggest risk of his life and lost.He found himself in Paris without a sponsor. He, of course, had resources from the sale of his business. So, he rented an atelier and began painting for public exhibition.
From the beginning in Paris, Dewis' work was highly regarded and well reviewed, but it was never heavily promoted.
He had decided that Petit's legendary prowess as a marchand d'art was the perfect complement to his own talents. But, now totally independent, Dewis simply did not have the drive—or the desire—to achieve commercial success.
And, at this juncture of his life, Dewis was to encounter another antagonist. Dewis' son-in-law, Jérôme Ottoz, was a highly successful businessman who resented his talented and (gallingly) more famous beau-père. Ottoz (also Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur) dominated the timid artist... at one point talking Dewis out of accepting a lucrative offer of sponsorship by another Parisian art dealer.
Eventually, Dewis reconciled himself to his fate. And, happily so. He was perfectly content painting what he wanted to paint... and not producing what was in fashion or what art promoters thought would "sell".
He told his family, "I paint as the bird sings"... for the pure joy of expressing his emotions.
The 1920s & 30s
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
, then a French colony. Collectors and museums from Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
purchased his work.
He was named Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.
His art was honored in Paris' Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937)
Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937)
The Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne was held from May 25 to November 25, 1937 in Paris, France...
.
Dewis was a Lauréat of the Société des Artistes Français
Société des artistes français
The Société des Artistes Français is the association of French painters and sculptors established in 1881. Its annual exhibition is called the Salon....
, an associate member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, a founding member of the Nouveau Salon and of the Société des Peintres du Paris Moderne and of the Société Royale des Beaux-Arts of Belgium, among others.
Dewis and his family fled Paris for the South West shortly before the Nazi occupation of 1940, initially staying with relatives in Bayonne.
Final years at Biarritz
By great good fortune in this time of war, they heard of a villa that was becoming available in BiarritzBiarritz
Biarritz is a city which lies on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast, in south-western France. It is a luxurious seaside town and is popular with tourists and surfers....
. An American was heading back to the United States and selling a large house with lovely gardens that he had named for his wife: Villa Pat. The family purchased the home and it was here that Dewis would paint for the last seven years of his life.
Biarritz wasn't far from Bordeaux, where Dewis had lived for more than 30 years from the 1880s up to the late 1910s.
He was once again inspired by the countryside of the Pays Basque.
Since travel was greatly limited during the occupation, Dewis often found his subjects within his own garden, in nearby parks and along the Atlantic coast.
Louis Dewis died of cancer at Villa Pat in late 1946. His passing was lamented in major French newspapers and reported in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
.
He was buried in the family tomb at Bordeaux's Cimetière de la Chartreuse :fr:Cimetière de la Chartreuse.
A legacy in hibernation
Dewis' devoted daughter Andrée had returned to live in her Paris co-propriété (condominium) after the war ended. Except for the period of occupation, the flat in Paris' XVIIe arrondissementXVIIe arrondissement
The 17th arrondissement of Paris is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France.-Geography:The land area of this arrondissement is 5.669 km2 The 17th arrondissement of Paris is one of the 20 arrondissements (administrative districts) of the capital city of...
was her home from 1935 until her death in 2002. The spacious apartment, just a few blocks from the Parc Monceau
Parc Monceau
Parc Monceau is a semi-public park situated in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, at the junction of Boulevard de Courcelles, Rue de Prony and Rue Georges Berger. At the main entrance is a rotunda. The park covers an area of 8.2 hectares ....
, occupied the entire top floor of a 19th century building.
Andrée had made many extended visits to Biarritz during her father's illness. After he died, she was intent on preserving everything related to his artistic career. She carefully crated up the entire contents of his atelier at the Villa Pat. Since she would be staying with her widowed mother in Biarritz for a while, she shipped the crates to Paris for safekeeping in the temporary custody of a favorite nephew, the noted architect Édouard Niermans
Édouard Niermans
Édouard Niermans is a French film director, screenwriter and actor. His film The Return of Casanova was entered into the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.-Selected filmography:* It Only Happens to Others...
(1903–1984); his father Édouard-Jean Niermans (1859–1928) :fr:Édouard-Jean Niermans, the so-called architect of the "Café Society
Café Society
Café society was the collective description for the so-called "Beautiful People" and "Bright Young Things" who gathered in fashionable cafes and restaurants in New York, Paris, and London beginning in the late 19th century...
", had married Dewis' sister.
Eventually, the boxes would be transferred to the attic of her co-propriété and placed in a locked room that was originally designed as maid's quarters. There the sturdy wooden boxes would sit, untouched, for nearly 50 years.
Dewis rediscovered
Dewis’ art had survived and blossomed despite the opposition of his father, the devastating loss of Petit, an antagonistic son-in-law and two world wars.But now, it was all locked away and collecting dust. Jérôme had absolutely no interest in any effort to construct a legacy for his deceased rival.
As the years passed, Andrée had all but given up hope that her beloved father might be remembered.
By the mid-1990s, Jérôme was dead. Through a chance conversation with a visiting great nephew from the States (a grandson of her sister Yvonne), the then 92-year-old Andrée and the young American opened the crates and immediately resolved to return Dewis' work to the public.
The more than 400 paintings and hundreds of sketches that they found were catalogued. Experts were retained to evaluate the vast collection and what were judged to be the most outstanding pieces were cleaned and properly framed for public exhibition.
The effort culminated in the exhibition Dewis Rediscovered at the Courthouse Galleries in Portsmouth, Virginia
Portsmouth, Virginia
Portsmouth is located in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of the U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2010, the city had a total population of 95,535.The Norfolk Naval Shipyard, often called the Norfolk Navy Yard, is a historic and active U.S...
in 1998. It was the first public showing of Dewis' art in more than half a century.
Dr. Linda McGreevy wrote essays for the catalogues for the first two Dewis exhibits in America. McGreevy, a Professor of Art History and Criticism and the Chair of the Art Department at Old Dominion University
Old Dominion University
Old Dominion University is a state university located in Norfolk, Virginia, United States, and is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools...
in Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
, has a special interest in French art between the two world wars. She described how Dewis' art was rediscovered in the attic of the Paris flat of Dewis/Dewachter's daughter:
"Louis Dewis was hardly an unknown artist in his time, but then again, he was no Monet or Degas either (both of whom he knew intimately). Louis Dewis' work resembles most closely that of Corot, who was his strongest influence, except that it tends to borrow from the Impressionists a more resplendent use of color. Dewis painted mostly landscapes, those of the Belgian towns and countryside he knew all his life. But by the end of WW II, the popular art styles of the time had not only changed drastically but the art world he'd known had fled Paris entirely. When he died, it was as if he took his life's work with him, except for less than a dozen examples in family hands in this country, and the few on the walls of his daughter's apartment in Paris. However, thanks to the perseverance of [Dewis' American great-grandson] and... the Portsmouth Art Museum, the work of Louis Dewis, and perhaps his spirit too, have returned from the dead..."
Since their rediscovery in 1995, more than 100 of Dewis' paintings found in his daughter's attic have been cleaned and framed and are lent to museums for the public to enjoy.
Sources
- Catalogues for Dewis Rediscovered (1998) and Encore: Dewis Rediscovered (2002), Courthouse Galleries, Portsmouth, Virginia
- L'avenir de la Dordogne (PérigueuxPérigueuxPérigueux is a commune in the Dordogne department in Aquitaine in southwestern France.Périgueux is the prefecture of the department and the capital of the region...
, France), 5 January 1918
- Petit Gironde (BordeauxBordeauxBordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
, France), 11 June 1918
- Memoirs of Yvonne Dewachter Robinson Young
- Transcribed interviews with Andrée Dewachter Ottoz (1995–2000)