Frédéric Dufoor, 1943

Born in Tournai, Belgian painter Frédéric Dufoor attended the Institute of Saint-Luc in Tournai and also the Academy of Mons. After a brief Bohemian interlude, he was enrolled with the studio of Louis Van Lint, at Saint-Luc in Brussels. In 1967, he went on to teach at the Superior Institute for Graphic Communications for 10 years, then held the post of professor at Saint-Luc in Brussels until December 1998. Initially, briefly influenced by his professors, he developed his art as an aesthetic one, spare, to the limits of abstraction.

Then came an expressionist period, tense and colourful, where compositions are generally articulated around diagonals and triangles. This composition will remain a constant in all Frédéric's creations, whatever is his pictorial vocabulary. In the meantime, he also produced large black and white drawings. Some were highly prized in Belgian art selections.  

Gradually (1971/75) the human forms will command attention in a new realistic representation. "Understanding the being or the object appears to be more important than its image". Nevertheless, his search for true reproduction encourages Frédéric to study past masters and their techniques. From many visits to New York, he will gain the conviction that what is significant is reality, which he, the Tournais heritage, will hunt down just as patiently as the early Flemish masters. Since then 1978, constantly working at his two preferred formats: the human shape and the large still-life, Frédéric casts an expert eye over his immediate environment: his studio, his tools, colour pots, bouquet of paint-brushes, building a bridge between Ingres' lessons, intimacy and hyper-realism quietly distanced.