Who is Roger Wittevrongel?

Roger Wittevrongel (born 23 April 1933) is a Belgian painter, draughtsman and graphic artist, representative of the hyperrealism.

Wittevrongel was born in Blankenberge, Belgium, and got his education in Ghent where he amassed his studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (1953-1956) with a moot training plastic arts in the State School (1954-1956) under the guidance of Octave Landuyt.

From 1956 stirring to 1971 he worked as a scholastic plastic arts at the State School in Ghent. Consequently, he was professor etching, drawing and lithography at the Royal Academy for Fine Arts in Ghent until 1997, where he got the title of honorary professor in the past then.

In 1954, Roger Wittevrongel made his debut in the appearance of Octave Landuyt, yet more in an abstract way, with work on the order of destruction, devastation and animal heads. Around 1964 he started to paint more figuratively, mainly architectural compositions ornamented with vegetable elements and female nudes between a broad range of attributes (for example painting and drawing tools). Around 1970 he comes to a hyperrealistic style bearing in mind an absolute accuracy in the reproduction of what the eye could see. However, he continued to innovation within this style and concentrated on trivial subjects, which he as a consequence depicted considering the greatest precision. The subjects themselves – interiors, fragments of architecture and female characters, are treated as still-lives, which gives them an abstract quality. These works in particular raise questions in explanation to man’s connection with visible reality. Here the admiration is less evoked by the profound virtuosity but more by the Ask of the meaning of existence.

Roger Wittevrongel exhibits back 1954 in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Morocco, Brazil, Tunisia, United States of America, Canada, South Africa, Taiwan.

At present he lives in Bachte-Maria-Leerne close the Lys, close to Ghent in the province of East Flanders in Belgium.