Galerie des Modernes

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Georges de Feure

Symbolism, Art Nouveau

(Georges Joseph Van Sluÿters, called) (1868 - Paris - 1943)

Georges Joseph Van Sluÿters, better know as Georges de Feure was born in Paris in 1868 into a Belgian and Dutch family. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian war, the family moved in Amsterdam. He studied in Saint-Joseph boarding school in Hilversum. In 1886, he is accepted in the Royal Academy of Fine arts in Amsterdam (Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten), but he doesn’t follow the classes and returns to Paris in 1868. De Feure then settled in Montmartre and became student of Jules Chéret in 1890.

Georges Feure talent began to be noticed in the early 1890s, as he realizes caricatures for newspapers, symbolist style watercolors and receives commands for posters. He drew for Le Courrier Français, Le Boulevard and L’ image. He also realised posters for Loic Fuller for the Salon des Cents.

The feminine figure has an important place in his production, compositions with obvious symbolic intentions as in The Infinite Researchers.

During the 1890-1900 decade, De Feure produced numerous lithographs and posters. He also illustrates books, including The Gate of Dreams written by Marcel Schwob (1899). His fame as a Symbolist painter and his experience as a poster creator encourage the art dealer Siegfried Bing to approach him to entrust the realization of the facade of the " Pavilion of Art Nouveau " at the 1900 World Exhibition held in Paris. In addition, Bing also entrusts Feure of achieving two inside of that pavilion. He also was the designer of the Chat Noir cabaret and invented forms of furniture in the spirit of what is called the " modern style ". He was also a professor of decorative arts at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris.

In 1903, the gallery Bing in Paris exhibits an ensemble of his works. A retrospective was showed in 1903 at Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam), then in 1995 at the Prieuré – Departmental Museum Maurice Denis (Saint Germain en Laye). In parallel, a major retrospective of his work was held in Paris in 1903, then traveled to Hamburg and The Hague.

During the first decades of the twentieth century, he continues to create decorative sets, and then he founded an airplane construction company. During the decade 1910-1920 his interest in the theater led him to create sets and costume together with Henri-Gabriel Ibels (1867 to 1936). He also created utilitarian jewellery for decoration, realised approximately 400 lithographs and was a prolific artist. He notably exhibited at the Munich Secession. However, the artist is forgotten in the thirties and his material situation deteriorates. Georges de Feure died in Paris during the Paris occupation, in November 1943. He is buried in the cemetery of Batignolles in Paris.

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