Eugeen Van Mieghem

At the beginning of the 20th century, Eugeen Van Mieghem, like a ‘raving reporter’, unceasingly draws the bristling city. A tireless draughtsman and painter of ordinary people, he depicts the hard labour of male and female dockers in Antwerp. He draws beggars, vagrants and prostitutes: the ragged edge of a port city. He watches Jewish - often shabby - migrants on their way to America passing in front of his door. But he pays equal attention to the daily activities of his wife and child, the bourgeoisie in the brasseries and dance halls, the industrialisation of the modern port and the ravages of the First World War.

He has eyes for the outer world and the inner world, high and low, entertainment and labour, love and horror - everything that comes into his field of vision. His oeuvre shows the ‘now’ in which he lives. Van Mieghem is the seismographer of his time. He was well informed about what was happening in art, but was never a follower of the latest art trends. He was and remained a maverick.

On the occasion of a generous donation by the Stichting Eugeen Van Mieghem, the museum shows the multi-faceted oeuvre of this idiosyncratic, socially committed Antwerp artist. With loans from public and private collections, curator Eric Rinckhout focuses on Van Mieghem's impressive pastels and drawings.