Jacques van den Abeele Belgian, 1960-2023
"Where form transcends appearance, and music takes shape in bronze."
Jacques Van den Abeele (1960-2023) was a Belgian figurative sculptor known for the expressive power of his bronzes.
Musicians absorbed in their instrument, animals caught in stillness or tension: his work sought presence rather than likeness, through a gradual purification of form.
A resident artist at Art Thema for nearly twenty years, he left behind a body of work that is now closed: since his death, no bronze can be cast again.
His sculptures have been acquired by museums, public institutions and private collectors across Europe, and he created several monumental public commissions.
ArtThema Gallery represented Jacques Van den Abeele for more than 20 years and continues to promote and preserve his artistic legacy.
Trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Oudenaarde and then at the Sint-Lucas Academy in Ghent, where he practised life drawing, Jacques Van den Abeele turned to bronze in the early 1980s. He never left it.
His way of working explains much of the power of his sculptures. He used direct lost-wax casting: the wax model, worked from the inside as well as the outside, is destroyed during casting and leaves no mould behind. For every single cast, he therefore began the modelling again from scratch. His dog "Lassie" was modelled twelve times, the maximum of one of his editions: eight casts and four artist's proofs. Twelve sculptures born of the same subject, yet never quite identical. His studio burned down three times. Each time, he rebuilt everything and began modelling again.
Since his death in 2023, no further casting is possible. With no mould and no hand to make it, the existing bronzes are the only ones that will ever exist.
His musicians made his reputation. The cellist bent over his instrument, the zither player: figures of concentration in which emptiness counts as much as mass, and movement seems suspended just before the note. His animals belong to the same search, spare and taut.
His work received several awards, including the Severien de Lathouwer Prize (1978) and the Auguste Vermeylen Prize (1982 and 1985). His sculptures are held in Belgian public collections, notably in Ghent, Nazareth and Kortrijk, as well as abroad.
Jacques Van den Abeele was a resident artist at Art Thema for nearly twenty years. During the years of the large Brussels gallery at 51 rue de la Madeleine, with its thousand square metres of exhibition space, his sculptures were on permanent display: there was always a Van den Abeele to be seen. A discreet man, he sought neither honours nor attention. He simply worked, in his studio.
Today, Art Thema works on the secondary market for his work: the gallery occasionally offers pieces entrusted by collectors, sources a particular sculpture for a buyer, and advises owners on a work in their possession.
Do you own a work by Jacques Van den Abeele, or are you looking for one? Write to us: we know his work and his market.
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