Cadaquès - Willem Paerels - Expressionism - Wouters, Permeke

It exudes from this arid landscape, where the blue of the sea echoes the blue of the sky and the color of the sand the facades of the houses, a poetic atmosphere.
It is Cadaquès, seen from the port of Alguer, the emblematic village of the Armor coast, which has seen the greatest artists of the 20th century pass under its arcades. 
This refined representation of Cadaquès around 1930 is the work of the Belgian painter Willem Paerels.
At that time, under the influence of constructivism, as it developed in Belgium in the early 1920s, his colors were darker and the forms of his landscapes and still lifes were more synthetic. His work is then close to painters such as Henri Ramah or Paul Maas.
Willem Paerels was born in1878 in Delft in the Netherlands and died in 1962 in Braine l'Alleud in Belgium.
It was in his father's decoration studio that he began to draw and made his first attempts at painting. In 1894, he left Delft for Brussels and entered the Academy of Fine Arts, where he remained for a short time, preferring to attend free workshops.
From 1900 he began to participate in various fairs and exhibitions, presenting works of an impressionist vein alongside Marquet, S Valadon, Utrillo and became close to painters such A Oleffe, P Thèvenet and F Schirren.
In 1914 he worked in Holland in Scheveningen and befriended Rik Wouters before returning to Brussels after the armistice.
Founding member of the artistic groups "Le Labeur", "L'Effort", "Vie et Lumière", then "Contemporary Arts".
He is also a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Sciences, Letters and Arts.
Professor at the Academy of Louvain, he belonged to the so-called “Laethem St Martin” School with Rik Wouters.
He participated in the universal exhibitions of Brussels (1935) and Paris (1937).
Works preserved in the museums of: Brussels - Amsterdam - Antwerp - Cologne - Ghent - Grenoble - Liège.
In 1978, the Royal Museums of Belgium organized a traveling exhibition of his works.

Oil on canvas in very good condition but a small restoration and some retouching were necessary.
It is signed "Paerels" lower right and measures: 19,7 x 23,6 Inches witout frame and 26,6 x 30,5 Inches with its Montparnasse frame.