Jan Anton Garemyn

Jan Anton Garemijn or Jan Anton Garemyn (15 April 1712, Bruges – 23 June 1799, Bruges) was a Flemish painter and engraver and draftsman. He painted biblical subjects, allegorical subjects, genre scenes, rustic scenes, landscapes, portraits and decorative motifs. He is known for his lighthearted depictions of everyday life. As an art teacher and director at the art academy of Bruges, he played an important role in the revival of artistic activity in Bruges. Life Garemijn was born in Bruges as the son of Frans Garemijn, a cooper who died when Jan Anton was 7, and Magdalena Missiaens (or Messiaens). He was baptized on 15 April 1712 in the St. Salvator Church of Bruges. Following his father's death he apprenticed for several years to the sculptor Rochus Aerts. Subsequently he attended the newly established art academy in Bruges where he studied under the painter Jozef Vanden Kerckhove until the latter died in 1724 and the academy ceased to operate effectively. He also trained with Lodewijk Roos (Lodewyk Roos), a painter originally from Kortrijk who had moved to Bruges. He also became acquainted with Matthias de Visch, a painter of history paintings and portraits. De Visch had worked in Paris and Italy from which he returned to Bruges in 1732. He later became director of the art academy of Bruges. He introduced Garemijn to Italian painting and also taught him the elegant salon art of Antoine Watteau and François Boucher.

Garemijn designed and executed several of the plates for the Chronyke van Vlaenderen (Chronicles of Flanders) published in 1736 by Andreas Wydts. In the 1740s he worked on decorative paintings in various private residences. In 1749 he designed the processions and decorations for the celebration of the 6th centenary of the founding of the Chapel of the Holy Blood in Bruges. In 1753 he received from the minister plenipotentiary of the Austrian Netherlands Johann Karl Philipp von Cobenzl the commission to paint a large canvas depicting the Digging Out of the Ghent-Bruges Canal, an important public project of that time.

He became director at the art academy of Bruges in 1765 after the death of Matthias de Visch in that year. In 1768 he obtained in his capacity as director of the academy permission from the chapter of the St. Donatian's Cathedral to inscribe an epitath in memory of the famous Bruges painter Jan van Eyck in the Cathedral. In 1765 he retired as a director of the academy of Bruges. In 1778 he painted his famous The Vegetable Market on the Pandreitje (Groeningemuseum), which shows his talent in depicting in a lively manner large group scenes in a wide setting.