Photography by Sebastian Schutyser
It is with great sorrow that we have learnt of the death of Maurice Frydman who passed away on Sunday evening aged 94. The gallery has not only lost one of its most unique artists, but also a friend, and shares in the sadness of his family and friends. We will miss his tall stature that never stooped over the years, his face modelled by time, his gentle expression, his life force, his attentive speech and his art.
Witness to nearly a century of history, born in 1928 in Paris in a Jewish family of Polish immigrants, Maurice Frydman lived his life with spirit and staggering vital energy. A painter, illustrator, engraver, plastic artist and sculptor, he leaves behind him a powerful life’s work, full of humanity, which he created in several media, always with the same talent. No matter the technique, in his early figuration or in abstraction, the artist chose to talk to us about love and hatred, stigmata, rips and scars. Sometimes showing vulnerability and distress in meaningful images that are reminiscent of the darkness of history, sometimes inspired by more personal and intimate memories, humanity was with him throughout his journey. For many years, his artistic quest was focused on a material that appeared banal yet sensual, plastic film, which is supple and elastic – a sensitive, almost living surface, so like the plasticity of skin. Chosen for its unmatched and unsuspected virtues, it would open a new path, become a material of choice and join painting in this complex tension and stretching that Maurice Frydman’s work is known for. Each of these works of art will now become an experience of which neither the process nor the result are predictable, constantly developed and renewed until his final works.
Maurice Frydman drew recognition from institutions, with exhibitions at the Jewish Museum of Belgium (2008), Bozar in 2011 (Plasticités), IKOB in Eupen (2012), the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Liège in 2014 (Tensions-Torsions) as well as in South Korea at the Taehwa Eco Art Festival (2014), among others.
Brussels, March 7, 2023
It is with great sorrow that we have learnt of the death of Maurice Frydman who passed away on Sunday evening aged 94. The gallery has not only lost one of its most unique artists, but also a friend, and shares in the sadness of his family and friends. We will miss his tall stature that never stooped over the years, his face modelled by time, his gentle expression, his life force, his attentive speech and his art.
Witness to nearly a century of history, born in 1928 in Paris in a Jewish family of Polish immigrants, Maurice Frydman lived his life with spirit and staggering vital energy. A painter, illustrator, engraver, plastic artist and sculptor, he leaves behind him a powerful life’s work, full of humanity, which he created in several media, always with the same talent. No matter the technique, in his early figuration or in abstraction, the artist chose to talk to us about love and hatred, stigmata, rips and scars. Sometimes showing vulnerability and distress in meaningful images that are reminiscent of the darkness of history, sometimes inspired by more personal and intimate memories, humanity was with him throughout his journey. For many years, his artistic quest was focused on a material that appeared banal yet sensual, plastic film, which is supple and elastic – a sensitive, almost living surface, so like the plasticity of skin. Chosen for its unmatched and unsuspected virtues, it would open a new path, become a material of choice and join painting in this complex tension and stretching that Maurice Frydman’s work is known for. Each of these works of art will now become an experience of which neither the process nor the result are predictable, constantly developed and renewed until his final works.
Maurice Frydman drew recognition from institutions, with exhibitions at the Jewish Museum of Belgium (2008), Bozar in 2011 (Plasticités), IKOB in Eupen (2012), the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Liège in 2014 (Tensions-Torsions) as well as in South Korea at the Taehwa Eco Art Festival (2014), among others.
Brussels, March 7, 2023