Portrait of Professor Leo Van Puyvelde, 1917

At the beginning of the First World War, Gustave De Smet and Frits Van den Berghe fled to the Netherlands. Both soon became part of the Amsterdam art scene, in which the painter Leo Gestel was their guide. Together with his friend André de Ridder, De Smet became mesmerised by the European avant-garde, for example in the Stedelijk Museum and in the art circle De Onafhankelijken, where Chagall, Braque, de Chirico, Léger, Matisse and Kandinsky exhibited, among others. De Smet also subscribed to the periodical Das Kunstblatt, in which the art of German expressionism was discussed and abundantly illustrated. De Smet left Amsterdam in August 1916 and moved to Blaricum, an artists' village in Het Gooi. Together with De Ridder and others, the artist played an important role in the establishment of the Open Roads circle in 1917, which united the progressive Belgian forces in Dutch exile. The Portrait of Leo van Puyvelde was created in a transitional period, in which De Smet sought to assimilate the influence of Fauvism and Expressionism. The artist positioned the silhouette of the art historian Van Puyvelde against an indeterminate background. De Smet took technical freedom to the extreme, especially in the face, which is painted in broad, blocky brushstrokes. In the colour scheme, however, the artist did not seek out the expressionist contrast, but allowed the soft tonalities to come together in a harmony. Leo van Puyvelde (1882-1965), is mainly known as the chief curator of the Brussels Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, where he was director from 1927 to 1947. Van Puyvelde also had strong ties with Ghent; since 1912, he had been a lecturer, and later a professor, at the university. Less well known is the fact that before the war he played an important role in the Flemish emancipation struggle. During the First World War, he repeatedly drew attention to the art of the Belgian exiles in the Netherlands; in 1919, he was the first to dedicate a study to the Belgians in the Netherlands, 'De Belgische schilders in Holland [The Belgian Painters in Holland]'. He was one of the earliest proponents of Gustave de Smet's expressionist work, as a critic in the magazine Onze Kunst and the newspaper De Amsterdammer, among others. Van Puyvelde, who worked at the Belgian Embassy in The Hague during the war years, also actively mediated in the exhibitions organised by De Smet during these years. Although he specialised in ancient art, he closely followed contemporary art.