Vader claerhout biography
- Frans Claerhout (15 February 1919 – 4 July 2006) was a Belgian painter who spent most of his adult life in South Africa.
- Born in Belgium, Frans Claerhout came to South Africa in 1946 as a Catholic priest and missionary.
- Frans Claerhout was a Belgian painter who spent most of his adult life in South Africa.
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Frans Claerhout
Belgian painter (1919–2006)
Frans Claerhout (15 February 1919 – 4 July 2006) was a Belgian painter who spent most of his adult life in South Africa.
Biography
Claerhout was born in Pittem, West Flanders in 1919, and moved to South Africa as a missionary for the Catholic Church in 1946, at the age of 27. He moved after completing his training for the priesthood. His first post was in the Transvaal but in 1948 he was transferred to the Orange Free State.[1] He stayed on a farm near Bloemfontein in the Free State province of South Africa. He worked as a priest and in his spare time he concentrated on his art.[2]
Claerhout was a self-taught painter who created landscapes and figures in oil paint. He started painting more after relocating to Thaba Nchu in 1960, and became famous for his unique style, which used vivid colors and incorporated items such as donkeys, sunflowers and figures of people he met through his everyday life. His work was inspired by Christian spirituality and Claerhout he painted biblical scenes.[1] He
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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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Frans Claerhout
South African 1919-2006
Beautiful Little Girl. Oil on Board, 51cm x 24cm excluding frame, 68cm x 41cm including frame. Framed.
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Description
Frans Claerhout (1919 – 2006)
Frans was born in Pittem, West Flanders in 1919, and moved to South Africa as a missionary for the Catholic Church in 1946, at the age of 27. He stayed on a farm near Bloemfontein in the Free State province of South Africa. He worked as a priest and in his spare time he concentrated on his art.
He started painting more after relocating to Thaba Nchu in 1960, and became famous for his unique style, which used vivid colours and incorporated items such as donkeys, sunflowers and figures of people he met through his everyday life.
Examples of his work, 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 Kingdo
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