Vader frans claerhout biography
- Biography.
- Father Frans Claerhout, acclaimed artist, priest and humanitarian was born on this day in Pittem, western Belgium.
- The Flemish artist Father Frans Claerhout was born at Pittem in the western part of Belgium in 1919.
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Image from Dirk and Domminique Schwager (1994)
Biography
The Flemish artist Father Frans Claerhout was born at Pittem in the western part of Belgium in 1919. Claerhout completed his training for the priesthood in 1945 and was sent to South Africa in 1946 as a Catholic missionary. (His other choices had been Brazil or the Congo) Initially he worked in the Transvaal but in 1948 he was transferred to Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State. He worked as a missionary among the black villages around Bloemfontein, where his congregations consisted of simple and illiterate people living in impoverished surroundings.
Father Claerhout’s Congregation
During his first year in Bloemfontein, Claerhout made no contact with other artists and his only artistic activities were little illustrative sketches for his mother. He started painting seriously in 1957, rough sketches, somber scenes in dull colours. In 1960 Claerhout moved to Thaba ‘Nchu where he started painting more. He saw Thaba ‘Nchu as an artisists paradise. He had more time to paint, as he no longer had to
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SA Artist, Father Frans Claerhout, is born
Father Frans Claerhout, acclaimed artist, priest and humanitarian was born on this day in Pittem, western Belgium. After completing his studies, he immigrated to South Africa in 1946 as a Catholic missionary. He was initially posted to the Orange Free State, where he worked among the black people living in and around Bloemfontein. He served primarily in Bloemfontein, Thabanchu and his beloved Tweespruit mission station. Although Claerhout did not receive formal instruction in painting, his charming style appealed to art lovers and investors alike and he held his first solo exhibition in Johannesburg in 1961. His artworks - characterised by their warm colours, thick impasto paint, exaggerated forms, humour and compassion - were exhibited widely in South Africa, as well as in Belgium, Canada, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom. His subject matter consisted of people and animals that he encountered in his daily life. His donkey depictions are particularly well known. He primarily worked with oil paints on canvas or roug
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Frans Claerhout, the world-renowned Flemish artist, has died in his sleep at a Bloemfontein hospital after being admitted with pneumonia two weeks ago. Claerhout (87) continued to paint daily during the last few years of his life at a home for retired Catholic priests. Claerhout started painting in 1958 and held his first solo exhibition three years later. At first, Flemish artistic influences were evident in the colour and atmosphere of his paintings. Besides using bright colours, Claerhout was also known for sketching peculiar donkeys. And there was a very specific reason why he painted these animals. Claerhout said: "I am expressionistic. If you paint a horse, you cannot make it funny or long tail or ear, maar a donkey...you can make it long ear, you can make them blue or yellow. It's like a boerebok, you can give him a long beard and its tail up...but everyone wants a donkey. Maybe I'm a kind of donkey." Claerhout lived to make other people happy. And he was always smiling, even in the winter of his life - with a head of snow white hair and often no false teeth in his mouth. C