His first exhibition?

The obituary of Gerard Ceunis published in the Hertfordshire Express, following the artist’s death in September 1964, claims that Ceunis’ first professional submission as a painter was in 1912, at the ‘Triennial Salon’, shortly after he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. However, Christophe Verbruggen, in his highly informative article ‘The winding paths of Gerard Ceunis‘, states that the latter first exhibited professionally in the following year, at the Ghent Salon. Perhaps the two articles are referring to the same exhibition?

Poster for the 1913 International Exhibition held in Gent, Belgium. Printed by J. E. Goossens

(via en.wikipedia.org)

The newspaper obituary goes on to suggest that the first painting by Ceunis to be shown in public was entitled ‘Sunset’. However, I’ve discovered that this was actually the title of the painting that the twenty-nine-year-old artist submitted to the Universal Exposition which was hosted in Ghent in 1913. This was a major international event, with more than a dozen countries participating, and requiring a major programme of building and renovation in the city. The Flemish novelist Stefan Hertmans writes about the ‘Expo’ in his 2013 book Oorlog en Turpentijn (‘War and Turpentine’), which I’m currently reading (and which, incidentally, offers some fascinating insights into life in Ghent in the early twentieth century):

He [the writer’s grandfather] often roams the city, which is being turned upside down for the forthcoming world’s fair. La Grande Expo Internationale is expected to put Ghent on the world map. There is some controversy about the organization of the event and the costs. Early on, the French-speaking bourgeoisie takes the lead, mainly because the Germans are thinking about investing in the event. That incites the rising Flemish bourgeoisie to play the German card, in the knowledge that their German brothers support their struggle against Francophone supremacy in their own city. In short, as the Ghent World’s Fair approaches, German and French interests are already directly opposed. Amid the cacophony of world’s fairs in the early decades of the twentieth century, this is just one more disturbing sign of things to come. No one seems to recognize the squabbling in Ghent as a symbol of anything larger, except perhaps of the Franco-Prussian War forty years earlier and other conflicts of the past. Thanks to pressure from Ghent’s Francophone bourgeoisie, the French ultimately gain the upper hand. The Germans withdraw from the organizing committee and it becomes a completely French-language project, chaotic and poorly managed. No one really has any need for yet another international exhibition, except for the ambitious city of Ghent. The Flemish middle class grumbles, complaining that the enemy is now among Ghent’s own people – with their Francophone arrogance, the haute bourgeoisie are a ‘foreign element’ in the heart of their community. The first tears in the fabric are already visible, in a project that was meant as a show of unity.[1]

The exhibition catalogue, which is in French, lists Gerard Ceunis under ‘Groupe II. Beaux-Arts: Œuvres modernes’, and notes the title of his entry as ‘Coucher de Soleil’ – i.e. ‘Sunset’. In an earlier post, I wrote about Ceunis’ admiration for, and debt to, the Belgian luminist Emile Claus (whom Gerard and his friends had persuaded to be involved in their short-lived literary journal ‘Iris’ some years earlier), whose work included a number of striking paintings of sunsets. Both Ceunis’ granddaughter Tessa Cathcart and his great niece Elsie De Cuyper have sent me copies of an undated picture by Gerard of sunset on a river. I had always assumed this was a drawing, rather than a monochrome version of a painting, but I wonder if there is any connection with the painting Ceunis exhibited in 1913?

The catalogue for the Universal Exposition gives Gerard Ceunis’ address as ‘Rue Mercator, 8’ in Ghent. I assume this is a French rendering of (Geraard) Mercatorstraat, which is just to the north of the old city centre. If so, then the photograph below may show the house where Gerard was living at the time, with his wife Alice, whom he had married two years previously, and their infant daughter Vanna:

Geraard Mercatorstraat 8, Ghent (image via google.co.uk/maps)

The ‘Expo’ closed in November 2013. Within a year, the First World War had broken out, Germany had invaded Belgium, and Gerard Ceunis and his young family had fled to England, which would become their permanent home.

Note

1. From War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans, translated by David McKay, published by Penguin Random House UK, London.