Bert De Leeuw

Bert De Leeuw (Antwerp, 1926–2007) grew up in the south of Antwerp, in a working-class family, and drew from an early age. After evening classes in art history and decorative arts, he built a career in advertising and as a set designer for Belgian public television by day, while painting in his attic studio by night. In 1959 he was a laureate at the first Paris Biennale, a turning point that allowed him to devote himself fully to his artistic practice.

His matter paintings, built up from sand, coal ash and bitumen, led him towards sculpture. Through gallerist Jan Krugier in Geneva he entered an international exhibition circuit and encountered artists such as Francis Bacon, Piero Manzoni and Lucio Fontana. In Belgium he was close to Pol Bury, Roel d’Haese and Camiel Van Breedam.

In 1970 he completed his masterwork 1/24×23×22…×1: 24 modular bronze elements that can be combined endlessly. The title is not an abstraction but a formula: the number of possible arrangements. For De Leeuw, numbers were a language and forms were carriers of human emotion. The work stands today in the gardens of the KMSKA and the Middelheim Museum in Antwerp.

After a retrospective exhibition in 1997, a serious eye condition prevented him from continuing to work. He passed away in 2007.