Frans Masereel
(b Blankenberge, 30 July 1889; d Avignon, 3 Jan 1972). Belgian printmaker, illustrator, draughtsman and painter. He came from a well-to-do Ghent family and studied briefly at the Acad?mie des Beaux-Arts in Ghent before settling in Paris, where in 1914 he published his first album of woodcuts, a work that gave no indication of his future style. He left for Switzerland in 1914 and was based until the end of World War I in Geneva, where he was associated with the circle of writers around the French novelist Romain Rolland (1866-1944). Throughout World War I he contributed to the Geneva daily newspaper La Feuille, supplying it with drawings that provided a critical commentary on the vicissitudes of war, denouncing those responsible and especially high finance. Using a brush and black ink, Masereel emulated the idiosyncratic style of his woodcuts, rejecting traditional hatching and confining himself to contrasts of black and white, with a novel emphasis on the expressive potential of the black areas. While living in Geneva he and his friend the poet Ren? Arcos founded les Editions du Sablier, which published the work of writers with pacifist tendencies, such as Rolland, Charles Vildrac, Georges Duhamel, Pierre-Jean Jouve, Andreas Latzko and Stefan Zweig, in beautiful editions illustrated with woodcuts by Masereel. Masereel also published, with great success internationally, several books that consist solely of woodcuts, such as Mon Livre d'heures (167 woodcuts, Geneva, 1919), Le Soleil (63 woodcuts, Geneva, 1919), Histoire sans paroles (60 woodcuts, Geneva, 1920) and Id?e: Sa Naissance, sa vie, sa mort (83 woodcuts, Paris, 1920).
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