Watercolor By Adolphe Crespin

the church of St Jacques - Lisieux June 11, 1929 Adolphe Crespin born in Brussels in 1859 and died in 1944, is a Belgian painter-decorator and poster artist of the Art Nouveau period, mainly active in Brussels. He is one of the great masters of Art Nouveau sgraffito alongside Paul Cauchie, Privat Livemont and Gabriel Van Dievoet as well as the illustrated poster. Adolphe Crespin studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, where he worked alongside Privat Livemont, Paul Saintenoy and Léon Govaerts, then at the School of Decorative Arts of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. street arts of the Midi where he frequented among others Fernand Khnopff and Édouard Duyck with whom he signed some posters at the end of the 1890s. He was one of the first followers of Japonism in Belgium. Other sources of inspiration include Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, as well as the Pre-Raphaelites John Ruskin and William Morris. He is professor of the painter Henri Evenepoel at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts who will also create the Portrait of Madame Crespin. He is also the teacher of Irène d'Olszowska. At the Schaerbeek School of Design and Industry, Crespin has as a colleague the architect Paul Hankar, of whom he becomes a collaborator.