Gilbert Swimberghe was born in Bruges in 1927. He studied at the Art Academy of Bruges from 1940 to 1946 and the Art Academy of Sint-Joost-ten-Node from 1947 to 1948, in parallel to his military service. Following his graduation, he pursued painting as a full-time career.
Inspired by the generation that had just preceded him (which included the likes of Rik Slabbinck and Constant Permeke), Swimberghe adopted an angular expressionist aesthetic with architectonic or folkloric references to his native city. Around 1958, following encounters with the works of Luc Peire and Victor Servranckx, he transitioned towards a more explicit abstraction. As was common in the first half of the 20th century, the artist developed his style through contact with other painters with whom he formed groups or collectives. Swimberghe frequented the Raaklijn group in Bruges (1956–1964), the Mesure group in Paris (1962–1977) and Gruppe INT in Hagen (1975–1989).
Once upon this non-figurative path, he progressed further towards greater essentialism and purity in shape, composition and colour. The latter element can actually be divided into precise periods: 1970–1971: pink period; 1972–1973: yellow period; 1974–1975: yellow-green period; 1975–1990: white and grey period; 1990–2015: deep grey to blue period.
The reflection on colour was associated with the evolution of surface, which went from the canvas to mosaic wall pieces to sculptural reliefs of geometric patterns featuring extruding shapes – primarily triangles – of different depths.
A list of the artist’s most important exhibitions reads as follows: Groeninge Museum, Bruges, retrospective exhibition (1977); Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels (1984); Municipal Museum, Schiedam and Van Reek Museum, Apeldoorn (1985); Garemynzaal in de Hallen, Bruges, retrospective exhibition (1997): Cultural Centre, Hasselt, retrospective exhibition (1997): Callewaert Vanlangendonck Gallery, Antwerp, retrospective exhibition (2013).
Across his career, Swimberghe won the following awards: Provincial Prize for Painting of the Province of West Flanders (1950, 1955); Language Award (1958); Prize for Young Belgian Painters (1958); Flemish Community Prize for an artist’s career (1987).
Various books and catalogues have been published on his work: Fernand Bonnere, Catalogue retrospective Gilbert Swimberghe, Groeninge Museum, Bruges (1977); F. Benezit, Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et engravers (1978); Guillaume Michiels, The Bruges School, Bruges (1990); Beatrijs Demeester, ‘Gilbert Swimberghe’, Lexicon of West Flemish visual artists Volume 2, Kortrijk (1993). Jaak Fontier, ‘Gilbert Swimberghe’, Monographs on modern art, Ghent (1997).
Swimberghe passed away in 2015.
