Frank Derie

The works of Derie are imbued with the dazzle of a flourishing society.  The generation of flower-power, blue-jeans, Rolling Stones, Woodstock, sexual revolution and individual freedom in the sixties which is braking with past traditions.
Figuration was “out” at the time.  Craftsmanship was synonymous with the past.  New forms of expression began to gain influence in the art world.  Land-art, concept art, video clips and installations became regular interests in the art magazines.

Against that background Frank Derie himself remains with his qualities as a splendid drawer and painter.  His life is of course significant of its time and contributes to defining the society with important aesthetic merits and artistic values.  His works of art surpass the function of identifying an era by virtue of its own quality; they enter the ranks of the artistic hierarchy.  In its independence, his art captures our interest and our emotions.
There are many and variant ways of defining an era.  Some of his favourite artists are Toulouse Lautrec, Rik Wouters, Gaugin, Cézanne, Bonnard, and others.  They all said very contradictory things about the same periods and yet each in his own way provided an accurate image of the spirit of the age.

Frank Derie succeeded in avoiding the avant-garde.  He is neither prophet nor disciple, victim of misunderstanding nor slave to success.  However, he remained closely bound to the world which was taking shape around him. 

He continued on his lonely, pioneering path, manifesting so clearly his own personal liberty, that the avant-garde, once it recognised his qualities, made no attempt to absorb him.

Frank was born in Gent in 1946.  His childhood was uneventful and his upbringing wisely conducted by his parents, led him towards a responsible, secure adulthood.  After his primary education he enrolled at the St-Lucas Academy in his native town.  After his studies he worked as a decorator but seemed soon to embark on his career as a painter with a feeling of being drawn towards an inescapable vocation. 

He was also attracted by the artistic life in general, with all that it entailed in terms of free expression, of imagination and freedom to live as one pleased.  At any cost, however, he wanted to escape from a monotonous existence.  Bourgeois by birth but explosive in his paintings, Derie lives a bohemian life in a bourgeois way, moving from Ghent to Melle and to Kruishoutem, letting the years slip by and seasons come and go.  This way of life demands the courage not to depend on anyone else, a courage that Frank demonstrates throughout his life.

Fauvism was back in vogue, a revival of expressive feeling was inspiring many groups of artists.  Despite the evolution in which “New realism” remained the driving force with artists such as Baselitz, Auerbach, Lucian Freud.  Frank stayed with Fauvism.  In this artistic gospel Frank knew he had much to learn and to discover in a time full of information and media.  He admired Picasso’s work for itself and not in its context of cubism.

His first exhibition took place in 1978 at the “Kunstforum” gallery in Schelderode.  For the first time his work is exhibited next to works of Karel Appel, Lucebert and Kees Van Bohemen from the “Cobra” group.  In flamboyant colours he shows drawings and oil paintings of “still-lives, seascapes, interiors and portraits”.  In his typical and expressive style he showed that painters were not only concerned with making pictures, but also with making painting a harmonious part of the decorative arts.  Further exhibitions in the gallery “Beukenhof” decisively established Derie’s place in the artistic world of Belgium.

The remainder of the story as we know today is told in the successive exhibitions during the 25 years at the gallery “Beukenhof”: his gradual climb to success and fame, his patient, continuous work, his ratification by the acceptance of his works by galleries in The Netherlands, France and Germany.