Fred Bervoets

From July 2 to September 10, 2023. Fred Bervoets' exhibition opens on Saturday, July 1 from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Fred Bervoets' artistic career began when he was a student at the National Higher Institute of Fine Arts. The Café Pannenhuis on Conscienceplein hosted concerts and exhibitions and was pretty much the Academy's regular café. Autumn 1961, Bervoets exhibited there with Ferre Grignard, and the exhibition was taken over by De Kunstkamer (Lange Nieuwstraat 153). In October 1963, little more than 60 years ago today - the time of a lifetime - he participated in the "Subterranean" expo at the Bank of Brussels, along with Ferre Grignard and ten other subterranean artists. He was twenty-one and by now already had the Huysmans in his pocket, although he still had two more years of study to complete.

The significance of that exhibition in Brussels was that he was noticed by the well-known Brussels painter Maurice Wyckaert, who introduced him to the very wealthy collector Stéphane Janssen. The latter conceived a special sympathy for Fred and his work, and exhibited him at his gallery La balance on Avenue Louise. Stéphane Janssen did not sell art, but did not disappoint his artists either - he bought the entire exhibition himself and added it to his very extensive collection. Years later, in 1993-94, he exhibited Bervoets' works at the Center for the Arts in Scottsdale, Arizona, along with about as many canvases by Jean-Michel Basquiat. Most art critics in those years were simply enthusiasts who liked to wander from one gallery to another to be greeted generously and with égard by the artists and their gallerists. Not infrequently they were writers and poets, such as Rémi de Cnodder, René Turkry and Nic Van Bruggen. Sometimes another artist as well, such as the literary highly accomplished Jan Cox.

Artists: Fred Bervoets