Floris Jespers - Portrait of a man

Pencil drawing of a man's portrait, signed "Jespers" lower right and dated "44" lower right, with the inscription "Arlon" lower left. Floris Jespers (1889-1965), together with his brother Oscar, attended the Art Academy and painted, made etchings and played music. He was very friends with the poet Paul van Ostayen and belonged to the Antwerp avant-garde from the 1920s. As a visual artist, Jespers was constantly searching, experimenting with new techniques and styles, and successively embraced impressionism, constructivism, expressionism, fauvism, and cubism. In the 1950s he traveled to Congo and became known for his paintings of Congolese women. Gaston Burssens wrote a monograph about him.
On charges of (never proven) collaboration with the German occupier, Floris Jespers and his family were interned for some time in the Arlon prison in August 1944, where he made a series of drawings of cellmates and fellow prisoners. These drawings subsequently came into the possession of Gaston Burssens, and were exhibited in September and October 1965 at the Galerie des Arts in Antwerp. Due to the mention “Arlon” and the year “44”, the offered drawing may come from this series.