Clément Serneels

It is unknown who this striking and powerful lady is but her strength of character is without question. Dressed elegantly she fixes her gaze with both artist and viewer, in a deeply captivating and arresting manner. Serneels showcases, all of the usual flair and immediacy, for which he became known and paints his subject with a directness that matches her expression.

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Clément Serneels was born in Brussels in 1912, to a Spanish mother and a Flemish father, who was an architect. He attended the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Belgium and showed signs of artistic brilliance from an early age he studying under Professor Alfred Bastien becoming of one his brightest students.

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In 1936, he was awarded a government scholarship to spend a year painting in the former Belgian Congo. The exhibition of his work held on his return was a sell-out and he used the funds from it to afford a further trip back to the Congo in 1938, when this work was painted. He remained in the Congo for the remainder of the war before moving to South Africa for 8 years. In 1953 he returned to the Congo until 1960, when colonial rule ended in the country, prompting a move back to Belgium for Serneels, where he stayed until his death in 1991.