EMILE JACQUES GRUMIEAUX

EMILE JACQUES GRUMIEAUX

EMILE JACQUES GRUMIEAUX was born in Gosslies, Hainaut, Belgium, on May 17, 1897, and studied art in various European and American cities. He has painted in Belgium, France, England and Canada, and, in this country, in Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, New York, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia. He is a member of the Chicago Society of Artists, the Chicago No-Jury Society of Artists, the Illinois Academy of Fine Art and 10 Artists (Chicago). He has exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Toronto Art Museum, the Illinois Academy of Fine Art, the University of Michigan, the Kansas City Museum and the Detroit Museum. A one-artist show of his work has been held at the Chicago Woman's Aid. The Chicago Society of Artists Gold Medal, and the Eames Mac Veagh Purchase Prize (in the Illinois Academy) have been awarded him. He is represented in the Springfield, Illinois, Museum. His work has been written about in Chicago publications, by R. A. Lennon, Irwin St. John Tucker, Tom Vickerman and J. Z. Jacobson.

Somewhere I recall reading the old myth that all new gods arise out of the foam the old gods have left behind as they sank into the oblivion of the sea. Perhaps the comparison is far-fetched but so it seems to me also in regard to the finished picture. All the canvases that have gone before, the struggles to express and put over a certain idea, whether or not successful, contribute some indefinable thing to the pictures which the future will bring forth from the artist's brush. Every completed picture marks a step forward in the elimination of unessential detail-brings out the primary importance of design in building up the picture pattern with its absorbing play in color to bring out form in all its infinite variety. We eventually, then, throw away all the old ideas and tenets which hitherto had seemed so important, and turn our backs on the mass of preconceived doctrines with which we started our career as a painter. It naturally follows that the artist, having repudiated all the sacred concepts of his artistic forefathers, will gradually build up an art theory of his own, evolved from his own experience in painting. It would be foolish to expect that this theory would show no relation to the contemporary spirit. There is usually a subtle relationship between the colors of a man's mind, the work he does and the artistic group he moves in. I feel all this in connection with my own work as an artist, and I am aware that each and every finished picture I make is only the natural resultant of all my previous art experience, coupled with the unconscious influence of the times (in their artistic phase). Emile Jacques Grumieaux.