Gilbert Swimberghe

Gilbert Swimberghe

Oil on canvas depicting an abstract composition in shades of gray.

100 x 100 cm

Signed and dated on the back 2002

Gilbert Swimberghe (1927–2015) was a Belgian painter, draftsman, and printmaker from Bruges. Trained at the Academies of Fine Arts in Bruges and Ghent, he began his career in a figurative vein marked by a dark palette and themes imbued with spirituality and interiority. Over time, his work evolved towards a rigorous geometric abstraction, characterized by a refined visual language and a subtle search for light. From the 1970s onward, Swimberghe developed a pictorial universe of great sobriety, dominated by variations of gray, white, and earth tones, where material and nuance took precedence over the subject. This painting, both meditative and silent, testifies to a quest for balance and the essential, in the tradition of the spiritual abstraction of Mondrian or Nicholson. Considered one of the major figures of Belgian abstract painting in the second half of the 20th century, Gilbert Swimberghe has exhibited in numerous galleries and museums, notably at the PMMK in Ostend (now Mu.ZEE), and his work is featured in several public and private collections.