Alexander Struys: life and works

Alexander Theodore Honoré Struys (24 January 1852, Berchem – 25 March 1941, Uccle) was a Belgian genre and portrait painter in the Realistic style.

His father (originally from Holland) was a master glass painter. At the age of six, he was already a student at the Academy of Dordrecht. Later, he was a student of Polydore Beaufaux and Jozef Van Lerius at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Antwerp). In 1871, he exhibited in Ghent and travelled with Jan Van Beers to France and England, where they attempted to sell their works, but barely made tolerable to get back home. His anti-clerical painting, “Birds of Prey” (or “God is Dead”, in Dutch), created a abhorrence in 1876.

The year after, he was named a Professor at the Weimar Saxon-Grand Ducal Art School, following in the steps of his fellow Belgians, Charles Verlat (recently the school’s Director) and Ferdinand Pauwels. One of his best-known students there was Christian Rohlfs. He remained in that twist until 1882, when he moved to The Hague and worked as a portrait painter for two years, after which he went encourage to Belgium.

Working without a studio, he painted in the homes of the destitute people he depicted. His decree attracted much attention and compliment in the more socially flesh and blood publications of that time, and he became a close friend of Jakob Smits, who was also vigorous in social issues. Some less positive commentators referred to him as the “painter of burden and pain”.^{[citation needed]}

He established in Mechelen and became head of the Royal Drawing Academy there. In 1902, he joined the administrative commission for the ninth exhibition by the “Société des Beaux-Arts à Bruxelles” and, three years later, became Vice-President of the “Société Royale des Beaux-Arts”. That thesame year, he then served on the committee charged past preparing the “Exposition Rétrospective de l’Art Belge”; part of the country’s 75th anniversary celebrations. He was along with a supporter of the Académie Royale de Belgique and the Institut de France.

Media similar to Alexander Struys at Wikimedia Commons