Frans Depoter (1898-1987). "ghetto, Roya Valley, Italy". 1951.

Dimensions of the painting: 31 x 46.5 cm. Frame dimensions: 46 x 60 cm. (Usual wear). Original frame in gilded wood.
The painting is signed, dated 1951 and located on the back "Ghetto, Vallée de la Roja".
Village houses in the old Jewish quarter of La Brigue, Rue du Ghetto, Roya Valley, Alpes-Maritimes, France.
Frans Depooter, born in Mons in 1898, died in Maffe (Havelange) in 1987, is a Belgian painter. He worked from the age of 13 in the family business (his father was a decorator and entrepreneur in Mons) where he met Anto-Carte, Léon Navez and Léon Devos. This is how later (1928) they will be co-founders of the Nervia Group. In 1923, he married the painter Andrée Bosquet. He took lessons at the Academy of Mons (E. Motte) then Brussels (Delville, Constant Montald) and received various distinctions (among others: Gold Medal at the Exhibition of Decorative Arts (Art Deco) in Paris in 1925, Prize of the Royal Academy of Belgium in 1969, Gold Medal of European Artistic Merit He served as director of the Academy of Molenbeek-Saint-Jean (Brussels) from 1944. Of a poetic inclination, Frans Depooter deepens his resolutely figurative style in accordance with his nature. His stylized still lifes, his landscapes and his expressionist figures give way very early to refined works of apparent simplicity. His portraits on a plain background isolate themselves in dream or life. interior of the model. His flowers form fragile and tender bouquets. His landscapes often treated in halftones and transposed by a nuanced light testify to a discreet sensitivity (he was nicknamed: The cantor of Walloon Brabant). The talent of Frans Depooter is characterized by a search for moderation, refinement and poetry.