Painting By Roger Dudant (laplaigne, 1929 – Péruwelz, March 4, 2008), 1974

Abstract oil on canvas by Roger Dudant, a Belgian painter.

Against a textured background in shades of blue-gray, straight lines in luminous tones—composed of whites, pinkish reds, and black—are arranged.

A very beautiful, balanced, and gentle composition.

It is signed on the front, bottom right, “rogerDudant, 74,” and on the back, “B87, 24-8-74, Roger Dudant.”

The frame measures 100 x 73 cm. It is presented in a gold-leafed American-style frame that highlights the artwork and increases its dimensions by 5 cm (105 x 78 cm).

Condition: very good. The frame’s gilding is damaged in places, on the sides perpendicular to the painting.

DUDANT, Roger ( Laplaigne, 1929 – Péruwelz, March 4, 2008 )

Painter, draftsman, and creator of monumental works.

Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tournai under V. Noël and E. Salkin (1944–1949), and at La Cambre (E.N.S.A.V.) in Brussels in the studio of P. Delvaux (1950–1953), whom he succeeded in 1976. Young Belgian Painter Award (1953). Honorable mention at the Carnegie Foundation’s international competition, Pittsburgh (1955). Hainaut Prize (1956). Founding member of Hainaut 5 (1964).

His early works were inspired by construction sites and abandoned machinery. Continuing along the path of the abstraction movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Dudant then embraced a certain lyricism, creating landscapes rich in atmospheric nuances and visual or auditory sensations, transcended by a musical rhythm. From 1965 to 1980, his “fantastic landscapes” (O. Demol) emerged, in which an unreal atmosphere envelops a proliferation of straight lines that generate a space—a pure mental construct born from the intersection of planes and the incidence of light. His “interest in a world in the making undoubtedly unconsciously embodied the dream of the future” (R. Dudant); he brought it to life in a 9-meter-long mosaic for the Parc metro station in Brussels (1973).

Around 1980, his compositions took on a more ethereal perspective, once again featuring muted tones—gray, beige, green, and blue—with hints of ochre or rust. Marshes and poplars from the vast plain of his childhood reappear in the work of this artist, who reconciled the concepts of figuration and abstraction, “blending one into the other” (D. Gillemon), through a constant creative impulse.

Exhibitions:

• Belgian government
• numerous Belgian museums
• Lugano Museum, Switzerland
• Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA
• Palm Beach Museum of Art, Florida, United States
• Museum of Modern Art, São Paulo, Brazil