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Smaller work by Brother Max with beautiful colors.
Comes from private collection.
In the mid-1960s, Brother Max was noticeably looking for subjects with emotional content. Someone told him that he found no tragedy in his work and that worried him. So just look in reading material and in the events of the time. He depicts them, paints, draws: refugees and war violence, fear and victims of body and mind.
Brother Max:
Victor van Meerbeeck joined the congregation of the Brothers of Charity in Ghent in 1922 and took the monastic name Maximinus or Max. From 1929 he took drawing lessons at the Higher Institute Sint-Lucas in Ghent, where he graduated in 1935. He then continued to train under the guidance of Gust De Smet.
His first exhibition took place in Ghent in 1941 at the Ars art salon. In the period 1961-73 he exhibited in Antwerp, Ostend, Turnhout, Herentals, Hasselt, Lichtaart, Beringen, Leuven, Aalter, Tessenderlo, Kortrijk, Diest, Veurne and Duffel.
Max painted portraits, still lifes, landscapes and religious scenes (stations of the cross, Christ figures, icons). He signed his work with "br maximinus" and from 1955 with "br max".
Brother Max was a member of the Heikracht art circle in Neerpelt (together with Jos Geboers, Rik Hamblok, Ludo Laagland, among others) and of the Looise Art Circle Heidebloem, renamed "Kunstkring Tessenderlo" in 1970.
At the end of 1968, a "Retrospective Brother Max" took place in the Provincial Beguinage in Hasselt, on the occasion of his 65th birthday.
In 1972 he was appointed Knight in the Order of Leopold II.