Jean-Léon Gouweloos

JEAN LEÓN GOUWELOOS (Brussels, 1868–1943)
"Portrait of a Lady."
Oil on canvas.
Signed.

Jean Léon Henri Gouweloos was born in Brussels in 1868. Before beginning his art studies, he lived in Paris, where he designed posters. He then worked at his uncle’s printing shop, specializing in artistic prints. Like his brother Charles (1867–1946), Jean Gouweloos studied from 1887 to 1890 and from 1893 to 1894 at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. He was a student of the painter and decorator Albert Charles and the painter Jean Portaels. Beginning in 1887, he exhibited his works in Brussels, Namur, Ostend, and abroad: Paris (1900 and 1903), Düsseldorf (1904), Berlin (1908), and Munich (1913). In 1891, he became a member of the “Voorwaarts” artists’ circle.
Gouweloos rose to fame around 1900 after receiving praise for his paintings of bathers on Belgium’s northern coast. In addition to seascapes and landscapes, he is best known for his depictions of magnificent interiors featuring attractive women—particularly portraits and nudes—absorbed in their thoughts or engaged in small everyday activities. He also created two frescoes on the ceiling of the Casino-Kursaal in Ostend and twelve paintings for the Freemasons’ Lodge in Brussels (1900).
During World War I, from 1914 to 1918, he lived with his family as a war refugee in the Netherlands, first in Domburg and then in Scheveningen. There he frequently painted beach scenes. In Scheveningen, he was friends with the painter Emmanuel Viérin, who was also staying there as a war refugee.