Maurice Pirenne

Maurice Pirenne (1878, Verviers–November 25, 1968, Verviers) was a Belgian painter.

Early life and training Maurice Lucien Henri Joseph Marie Pirenne was the son of Virginie, née Duesberg (1839-1924) and Lucien-Henri Pirenne, a textile industrialist from Verviers. His brother was the historian Henri Pirenne. In his youth he became friends with Georges Le Brun, and both were encouraged by their drawing teacher Constant Simon at the Royal Athenaeum of Verviers. Abandoning his study in Graeco-Roman humanities, he devoted himself to painting. Between 1893 and 1899, he trained in Ghent, where he made the acquaintance of Albert Baertsoen and his Cercle des Beaux-Arts d'Ostende, then in Bruges, Paris, and finally Brussels.

Career Around 1900 he returned to his native town, where he stayed for the rest of his life. Still with Georges Le Brun and Albert Baertsoen, he frequented Octave Maus' La Libre Esthétique for a while and with whom he rejected the gratuitous virtuosity and violent of states of mind of expressionism (“Take your personality and lock it in a safe"). He quotes Pirenne's self-summation; "I am neither of the avant-garde, nor of the rear-guard, I am not of the herd."

Writings by Maurice Pirenne

Les Constructions verviétoises du VX au XX siècles, bulletin de la Société verviétoise d'Archéologie et d'Histoire, volume 26 Laurent Olivier, peintre verviétois, 1808-1857, ibidem, volume 30 Georges Le Brun, 1873-1914, sa vie de peintre, Société des Beaux-Arts de Verviers, 1920

Texts on Maurice Pirenne

André Blavier, Dessins de Maurice Pirenne, 1958

Une chambre à soi, Centre d'art Nicolas de Stael, textes de André Blavier et Jean-Marie Klinkenberg, 1994 Catalogue raisonné des œuvres (en préparation): Jacques Spitz, musées de Verviers