Gestel and De Smet – Colourful Friendship
‘It is therefore a joy to count among my friends a handful of those true artists whom I dare to mention alongside Van Gogh. Men who, instead of watching the clock, waiting for the call of an apéritif or a game of billiards, or calculating how much wealth they have added that day, devote themselves entirely to their art. One of those friends is Gustave De Smet.’ This is how the Dutch artist Leo Gestel (1881–1941) wrote about his Flemish friend Gustave De Smet (1877–1943) in 1934. Over the preceding decades, the two artists had found support in one another during difficult times, forging a deep and lasting friendship. Such a bond could not have existed without the profound respect and admiration they had for each other’s work. ‘Without flattery, you are an honest and tireless worker,’ De Smet wrote to Gestel. Gestel, in turn, was equally full of praise for his fellow artist: ‘To me, he is an artist of a rare kind. A great visionary, a dreamer and a powerful colourist.’
The First World War brought the two artists together. Gustave De Smet, a native of Ghent, fled to Amsterdam with his wife and only child. There he met Leo Gestel, who introduced him to his circle of friends, including his patron and art collector Piet Boendermaker. Before the outbreak of the First World War, De Smet had enjoyed considerable success as a painter of Impressionist landscapes.
In Amsterdam, however, he found himself, as he put it, ‘overwhelmed’ by the modern art he encountered there, including works by Henri Le Fauconnier, Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh. It was art that had largely passed him by in Flanders. The experience marked a turning point in his career: ‘My encounter with the work of several modern artists revealed to me that the visual imitation of nature stands in the way of pure expression. Since then, I have tried to break everything down within myself and build it up anew.’ Before long, De Smet came under the influence of the ideas championed by the French painter Le Fauconnier and his Dutch admirers, including Piet van Wijngaerdt and Leo Gestel. This style, soon known as the Bergen School, was practised mainly by Amsterdam artists who had settled in Bergen. Their work is characterised by Cubist influences, geometric forms, dark colour palettes punctuated by dissonant hues, and subtle accents of lighter colour.
At Gestel’s invitation, De Smet was able to exhibit his new, modern work at the sales exhibitions organised by the Hollandsche Kunstenaarskring at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Gestel also introduced his patron, Piet Boendermaker, to De Smet’s studio. Between 1915 and 1923, the collector acquired more than forty of De Smet’s paintings.
In 1916, De Smet moved from Amsterdam to Blaricum. There, through carefully considered compositions, he developed his own distinctive style. Figures and objects were greatly simplified, unnecessary details were omitted, and his compositions became increasingly two-dimensional. The influence of German Expressionism also became clearly apparent.
In 1922, De Smet returned to Belgium. At almost the same time, Gestel, together with his wife and the daughter of his patron, set off on a two-and-a-half-year artistic journey across Europe. The trip ultimately led to a personal and artistic crisis, after which De Smet invited his friend to stay near him in June 1925 to recover. As Gestel later recalled, his time in Flanders was the happiest period of his life. At first, his use of colour and geometric forms still reflected the characteristics of the Bergen School. Before long, however, his compositions became lighter in colour and more two-dimensional, stylistic qualities that echo De Smet’s work.
Leo Gestel, L’Écuyère, 1926, pastel, 48.5 × 63 cm, Studio 2000 Gallery, Blaricum
At the end of 1927, Gestel returned to the Netherlands. Just as he was preparing a new exhibition featuring mainly the work he had produced in Flanders, a fire broke out in his studio. Around 400 paintings were destroyed, although some 300 drawings were rescued from the flames. Support came from many quarters, including De Smet, who wrote: ‘Dear, dear friends, do not let this bring you down. We, too, have suffered hard blows in life. With our heartfelt friendship to you both, Gusta and Gust.’
For De Smet, the 1920s were highly successful, thanks in large part to the flamboyant entrepreneur Paul-Gustave van Hecke and the teacher and writer André De Ridder. However, the economic consequences of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 led to the bankruptcy of art dealers and collectors alike. The bank seized around 2,400 works from Boendermaker, the greater part of his collection, while art dealerships such as Le Centaure, for which De Smet worked, were declared bankrupt. De Smet moved to a smaller home, and Gestel likewise relocated to a modest house in Blaricum.
From this period onwards, women became a recurring theme in the work of both De Smet and Gestel. The women portrayed by De Smet are often shown deep in thought, quietly contemplative, somewhat distant yet never impersonal. Gestel, as he himself put it, was searching for the ‘primitive human’, through whom he sought to express the harshness of existence. He achieved this by radically distorting natural forms. During this period, his work bore many similarities to that of Constant Permeke (1886–1952), whom he had come to know during his stay in Flanders.
Gestel and De Smet were always in search of the ultimate form of personal expression. They supported one another in their pursuit of the right composition and the most satisfying means of expression, while always maintaining their own individual interpretation and artistic approach. As a result, their work reveals both striking similarities and clear differences. Gestel suffered from chronic stomach problems throughout his life and, particularly during the last fifteen years, was often confined to bed for extended periods. This led him to produce mainly smaller-scale drawings and book illustrations. During the 1930s, both artists enjoyed great success with major retrospective exhibitions. The Second World War, however, brought this period to an end. Gestel died in 1941, and De Smet followed in 1943.
In this exhibition, the Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar explores the friendship between De Smet and Gestel, a friendship that profoundly shaped the work of both artists. The foundations of De Smet’s distinctive style were laid in Amsterdam between 1914 and 1916, where he encountered Gestel and the Expressionism of the Bergen School. Contrary to what was long believed, it was not his later acquaintance with German Expressionism that proved decisive. For Gestel, the work of De Smet and his Flemish contemporaries became the starting point for his artistic development after 1925, most clearly reflected in his rural subjects, simplified figures and a stronger sense of monumentality. The exhibition in Alkmaar traces these developments step by step and, with the inclusion of seven paintings from The Phoebus Foundation collection, reveals both the enduring friendship and the artistic evolution of Gustave De Smet and his friend Leo Gestel.
Gestel and De Smet is on view at Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar until 13 September 2026. For more information and tickets, visit stedelijkmuseumalkmaar.nl.
Contribution by Kees van der Geer, Guest Curator at Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar.