Antoon De Clerck was one of the most important Belgian hyper-realistic painters of the 1970s. His modest but superlative oeuvre has earned him a permanent place within the rich tradition of Flemish painting. De Clerck studied at the Academies of Deinze (1931-37) and Ghent (1938-43). Under the influence of his tutor Jos Terdegem, his painting style there was expressionistic. In the summers of 1943 and 1944, he shared a studio in Machelen-aan de-Leie with Roger Raveel, with whom he would maintain a close lifelong friendship. The two artists tackled the same themes and drew from the same model. In 1945, De Clerck won the Prix Jeune Peinture Belge. A few years later, health problems temporarily brought an end to his promising artistic career.
De Clerck did not fully return to painting until 1967. The following year, he aligned himself with the art movement linked to pop art known as ‘De Nieuwe Visie’ [The New Vision]. Roger Raveel, Raoul De Keyser and Etienne Elias from the Leie region in Flanders, and the Dutchman Reinier Lucassen, were its most important representatives. Their main impetus was pictorial research into the everyday reality of their immediate surroundings. De Clerck’s distinct visual purism set him apart, however. In comparison to Raveel, whose approach was lyrical, emotional and expressive, De Clerck observed his subjects with a cool detachment. His process was almost mathematical. He was a master of omission, with the suggestive power of blank space sometimes surpassing any kind of depiction. De Clerck structured and minimised the space with rigid horizontals and verticals, and deployed diagonals to create strong perspectives.
The artist’s fascination with creating powerful photorealistic depictions quickly intensified. Despite his connection to ‘De Nieuwe Visie’, he is also viewed as a Belgian hyperrealist, alongside figures such as Roger Wittevrongel, Marcel Maeyer, Guy Degobert and Pierre Lahaut. Yet De Clerck’s work primarily revolved around depicting fragments of reality, as opposed to its photographic entirety. On the one hand, he would deliberately exclude certain realistic elements, whilst on the other hand, he would isolate or abstract specific details. This ruled out a purely photographic realism. In the 1980s, De Clerck increasingly withdrew into his personal world. This brought greater depth and spirituality to his work. His authentic vision of humans and society, in which he harnessed his optimism to transform the everyday into a dream world, acquired concrete shape. His eye for architecture and the formal presence of objects leant a strong architectural power and foundation to his oeuvre. His admiration for the designs of the Mexican architect Luis Barragán (1902-1988) led to an enhanced presence of silence, space, beauty, serenity and loneliness – but also joy – in his paintings.