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Albert Pepermans & Frans Masereel
Rencontre dans la ville

Frans Masereel (1889-1972) and Albert Pepermans crossed paths in the vibrant city of Brussels. Both are astute observers of humankind, with a boundless imagination, driven by an unwavering passion for drawing. Another shared passion between them was their love for the city as a subject. In the work of both artists, you can find recurring urban motifs – bridges, chimneys, factories, towering apartment buildings, and city dwellers, among others – rendered in a distinctive graphic style with a pronounced emphasis on black and white. It’s an energised type of style; the speed and immediacy with which their brushstrokes graced the paper not only reflect the artists’ zeal and inexhaustible energy, but also mirror the frenetic pace of urban life. While Masereel’s visual novel La Ville (1925) reads like a symphony of the city, Pepermans’ urban compositions dance – a bit bold and cheeky – to the beats of rock ‘n’ roll and punk.

However, the cityscapes by Masereel and Pepermans carry different undertones, largely shaped by the differing contexts in which these artists live. Masereel portrays a dystopian city, his work carries a political orientation and profound social critique. The artist lived through two world wars, coped with the horrors of these conflicts by drawing them, and sought to persuade his contemporaries towards pacifism. Residing in the industrial city of Ghent, he was confronted by the struggles faced by socialist movements fighting for improved living conditions for workers. Within Masereel’s body of work, the exploitation of labourers by our capitalist society emerged as a prominent theme, with nameless masses of workers symbolised as billowing factory chimneys, and those in positions of power depicted as larger than the factories themselves. His time in Paris, a city marked by its anonymity, left a significant imprint on Masereel’s art. Within his works, the artist juxtaposed the lonely individual against the teeming crowds of people, rendering the masses with remarkable technical precision.

Pepermans also delves into the human condition, though his approach is less militant, and he deliberately steers clear of politics. His body of work possesses a somewhat dreamy quality, imbued with humour and a rather innocent form of critical reflection. His art bears clear influences from Pop Art, Dada, the Neue Wilde movement, happenings, rock ‘n’ roll, anarchist punk, and underground comics. Pepermans, a product of his era – the vibrant 60s and 70s – holds a decidedly more optimistic view of the city. The urban landscapes he draws are defined by a vibrant ‘joie de vivre’. In contrast to Masereel’s rather negative portrayal of the city’s traffic with its hustle, chaos, and danger, Pepermans elevates the car as the reigning monarch of the urban jungle. It emerges as a recurring motif in his work, serving as a metaphor for travelling, being on the road, and the exhilaration of reaching one’s destination, a symbol of freedom, endless possibilities, and a great deal of enjoyment.

Rencontre dans la Ville, curated by Frank Hendrickx, showcases brush drawings and woodcuts by Masereel spanning various periods: preliminary studies for his pioneering graphic novel, La Ville, and for Stijn Streuvels’ De vlaschaard, and also works from the series Histoire de fou and La condition humaine. These works aptly demonstrate that, alongside his status as one of the most significant woodcut artists of the last century, Masereel was also a remarkable illustrator. Pepermans introduces new creations inspired by Masereel’s oeuvre; a series of small acrylic canvases, and several larger paintings on wood. Furthermore, he adapted, as if they were ‘modifications’, some test prints from a series of screen prints originally published posthumously by Ronny Van de Velde in 1983-1984; blow-ups of Masereel’s original small drawings. And so, Pepermans actively engages in a dialogue with Masereel’s legacy here as well.

Roxane Baeyens

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Location
Brussels
Date
 —

“In contrast to Masereel’s rather negative portrayal of the city’s traffic with its hustle, chaos, and danger, Pepermans elevates the car as the reigning monarch of the urban jungle”

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