(Deinze, Belgium 1930 – 2012)
Veld en wolkje (Field and little cloud), 1968, titled, signed and dated on the reverse, oil on canvas, 70 x 70 cm, on stretcher

Provenance:
Galerij Kaleidoskoop Gent (label on the reverse)
Collection P. Roelants, Brussels
Private Collection, Belgium

Exhibited:
Groningen, Groninger Museum, Raoul De Keyser: rondom de werkelijkheid: Schilderijen, objekten, situaties, tekeningen, zeefdrukken, 5 September - 5 October 1970, no.34 This exhibition later travelled to Haarlem, Franz Halsmuseum, de Hallen, 10 October - 16 November 1970 and ’s Hertogenbosch, Noordbrabants Museum, 28 November 1970 – 4 January 1971.

The Belgian painter Raoul De Keyser's predominantly abstract paintings have been internationally well received and his work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions at prominent institutions since the mid-1960s, one of the highlights being his participation in Documenta IX in 1992.

Since his debut in 1964 De Keyser has developed a unique, tactile body of work in which distinctions between the figurative and the abstract dissolve in a poetic alliance with the artist’s everyday life. His practice emerged from the so-called Nieuwe Visie, a local variant of international Pop Art that aimed to give everyday experience a heightened sensibility through combining figuration and abstraction. De Keyser's paintings are influenced by the modernism of the post-war years and reference colour field painting and minimalism.

De Keyser’s point of departure has always been a sense or experience of landscape, as is the case in the present work. This work is constructed of simple shapes and marks and invokes spatial and figural allusions, yet descriptive narrative remains elusive. This four-colour composition with its quotations from everyday life and nature perfectly illustrates Keyser’s ability to use simple gestures to communicate strong emotions.