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Reimond Kimpe

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REIMOND KIMPE

1885 – 1970

Born on December 8,1885 in Ghent, Belgium, Reimond Kimpe was a self-taught painter, his style evolving from symbolism to expressionism, and then towards abstraction.

He began his career not as an artist, but as an engineer, having attended the University of Ghent to study civil engineering. From 1918 to 1923 he worked on building projects in Middelburg, a town in the southern province of Zeeland, The Netherlands. However, in 1923 Kimpe fell ill and consequently abandoned his work as an engineer.  While in recovery he dedicated himself to painting, which became his life’s work.

Kimpe and Albert Servaes were childhood friends who had also studied Philology together, and it was Servaes who introduced Kimpe to the St. Martens Laethem School.  Kimpe, together with Frits Van Den Berghe and Gustave de Smet, wrote the manifesto Vie et Lumière  in protest to the Luminists.

In addition to working as an artist, Kimpe was also a skilled poet and the author of many short stories and plays.

After World War I Kimpe relocated to the Netherlands, where he would continue to live for the remainder of his life, exempting a brief period in the late 1920’s-early1930’s when he lived in Paris and exhibited with the Surindépendants, making the acquaintance of Picasso and Chagall.

Kimpe’s style brings together all of the romance, mystery, and technical excellence of the Belgian Expressionists. In the Netherlands, Kimpe often painted the fishermen and local women, and many of Kimpe’s paintings illustrate his interest in the sea and seafaring paraphernalia.  All of his paintings are deeply symbolic.

Kimpe’s most prolific period was during World War II, between 1939 and 1945.  This productivity was a result of the early bombings that devastated Middelburg, including his studio and over 200 hundred paintings. After the bombings he became more and more reclusive.  This solitude was of great artistic benefit to Kimpe , as he escaped the cruel restrictions that the Nazi’s imposed on other artists.  As a result of the Nazi’s regulations, several of Kimpe’s friends deserted their art practices.

Kimpe’s paintings were first shown in 1922 at the Den Haag Kunstzaal Toorop and then in 1924 at the Middelburg Kunstmuseum. Kimpe exhibited almost every year in Belgium and the Netherlands.  He showed his work in 1930 at La Galerie Themis in Belgium. In 1942 he exhibited at the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, and in 1962 in Antwerp at the C.A.W. aan de Meir. 

He exhibited throughout his career in his hometown of Middelburg, including many exhibitions at the Middelburg Kunstmuseum. He also showed his works at the Middelburg Vleeshal and the Middelburg Studio. Kimpe’s exhibitions in Holland included the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum and the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum. He also exhibited at the Het Prisonhof in Delft in 1952. 

In 1951 Winants HeerlenIn published an illustrated monograph on Kimpe, and in 1972 Joos Florquin published a finely illustrated book on Kimpe’s work.  A 1997 major retrospective exhibition was held at the Singer Museum in Laren, and also traveled to the Zeeuws Museum in Middelburg. An extensive catalogue with many color illustrations complemented the retrospective.

Kimpe’s works have been acquired by many museums including the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Museum Boymans in Rotterdam, Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp, Zeeuws Museum in Middelburg, and the Museo dell’Arte Moderno in Caracas.

After a career that spanned four decades Kimpe died in 1970.