Exhibitions

Just like the academies, the national salons, yearly alternating among Brussels, Antwerp, and Ghent, were dominated by artists of the nation. No records were found of any foreign sculptors exhibiting here before 1836, when the first French sculptor, Louis Victor Bougron (1798–1886), exhibited in Brussels. From that moment on, the number of foreign sculptors only slowly grew, with two French sculptors in 1846, and three in 1848. ¹ Almost thirty years later, on the occasion of the 50th birthday of the Belgian state, writer Camille Lemonnier (1844–1913) published a report about the development of the fine arts in Belgium and, unsurprisingly, exclusively mentioned the contributions of Belgian sculptors at the salons of the 1830s–1840s. According to Lemonnier, the great ‘stars’ of the Salon of 1835, and the subsequent years, were Guillaume Geefs and Eugène Simonis. ² In 1836 for instance, L’Artiste. Journal du Progrès praised Geefs and his ‘school’:

Geefs et son école méritent une appréciation toute spéciale, parce qu’ils s’attachent surtout à rendre des sentiments, parce que le mérite de l’exécution matérielle semble moins intéressant dans leurs œuvres que la grâce et la vérité de l’expression. ³

The importance of Geefs and Simonis seems to have exceeded the context of the national salons. Both sculptors were commissioned for important public statues, originating from the Belgian government’s resolve to commemorate national heroes through sculptures. Although Simonis and Geefs did not yet profit from the reorganizations of the national academies, they nonetheless succeeded in attaining successful careers, mainly through their national and international education and connections, and proved of great importance for the development of sculpture in Belgium. Of course, before they reached this 36status, Geefs and Simonis had to execute the important commissions and public monuments, which became their core business and claim to fame.