Englebert Van Anderlecht was not a member of ‘La Jeune Peinture Belge’, but his post-war quest to break free of painting was close to what this group had in mind. Encouraged by the painter Serge Vandercam and the poet Jean Dypréau, Van Anderlecht devoted himself from the beginning of the 1950s to the representation of deep primal passions. His aim was to revive a collective sensitivity and to express an age-old universe from which he and his contemporaries were in danger of becoming alienated. Van Anderlecht created ever larger informal canvases using broad brushstrokes and colours with an almost explosive beauty. Shortly before his premature death, he joined two Flemish renewal movements: the Antwerp-based ‘G58’, or ‘Group 1958’, and the New Flemish School.
