A ‘modest’ collection: on the collector in Alex Vermeulen

Over the past decade, the contacts between Vermeulen and the museum strengthened, allowing us to partake of his backgrounds, his pioneering professional career, his motives for collecting and his social altruism.

Léon Spilliaert

The core of the Vermeulen collection consists of four works by Léon Spilliaert (1881-1946) and dates back to family possessions on the side of his wife Anita Blanckaert, also deceased. She was the granddaughter of Gustave Tratsaert, who ran a grocery shop in the Witte Nonnenstraat in Ostend from 1909 to 1926; later on, it was located on the Prinses Stefanieplein in the same city. This specialist shop, which also sold colonial wares, boasted, among other things, the ‘importation of [the] very best English margarine,’ according to an advertisement in the newspaper De Zeewacht of 19 April 1919. Tratsaert's shop in Witte Nonnenstraat was within walking distance of the ‘grande parfumerie’ of Leonard-Hubert Spilliaert in the Kapellestraat, the father of Léon Spilliaert. Léon lived with his parents until his marriage in 1916.

Tratsaert owned Nocturnal Beach View (1905), The Lighthouse, (1909), Strollers at the Sea Side (1914) and Beach View (1917). Nothing is known about the contacts between Tratsaert and the young Spilliaert, but tradition has it that he paid for purchases with works of art. Via Martha Tratsaert, the daughter of the Ostend grocer, the works ended up in the Vermeulen-Blanckaert collection. The Vermeulen couple too, enjoyed a special relationship with the Ostend artist and completed the striking Spilliaert ensemble themselves through the purchase of Woman at the Sea Side (1913). As was the case with the Spilliaert, Vermeulen also bought a work by James Ensor (1860-1949), that other Ostend great master around 1900, in the Guillaume Campo auction room, an early but nevertheless intriguing drawing by the artist, probably dedicated to the theme of the New Testament Sermon on the Mount.

Around Sint-Martens-Latem

The other works that formed part of the usufruct bequest in 2012 are stylistically of a different order and reflect Vermeulen's interest in Belgian and international modern art from the interbellum to around 1950. In terms of Belgian art, he felt a strong connection with Frits Van den Berghe (1883-1939). During our conversations, he liked to refer to his childhood in Sint-Martens-Latem and the then still living artists he met there. The fact that Vermeulen liked to document and consult experts when making his purchases is evident, among other things, from his correspondence with Emile Langui, who had published the artist's first catalogue raisonné in 1966.¹ When Vermeulen signalled to him the recent purchase of Van den Berghe's gouache Susanna and the Elders (c. 1924), Langui congratulated him in late 1971 and stated: ‘I hope to set up an exhibition of F.v.d.B's watercolours and drawings somewhere soon (in this field, too, the Ghent master is unequalled) and then to be able to call on your cooperation.’²

Almost two years later, when he bought the drawing - then still titled Aan zee ( At the Sea Side) but essentially a compilation composition after the works The Birth of Aphrodite in Ostend (1922), Adventure (1924) and Life (1924) - Vermeulen again consulted Langui. In his reply, the Van den Berghe connoisseur wrote in detail about his amazement at the way the artist had forged the individual compositions into a new unity, at how, in the drawing, some details from the original works had disappeared or been enlarged, how characters had taken a different pose to fit seamlessly into the new whole, etc. Langui concluded: ‘Why F.v.d.B. composed this kind of synthesis remains a mystery to me: a favour or need for money? Who knows?’³

Classic contemporary

The third part of Vermeulen's collection includes works by artists who became active mainly after World War II. His notable preference for the classics of 20th-century art, which he had come to know through the Belgian and international art and gallery scene during the 1950s-60s, would later prompt him to acquire works himself by artists such as Karel Appel (1921-2006), Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985), Hans Hartung (1904-1989) and Serge Poliakoff (1900-1969). He liked to refer to the close relationship he maintained with friends-collectors such as the Ghent neuropsychiatrist and collector Roger Matthys, with whom he regularly socialised.⁴ His appreciation for his colleague's enthusiasm was great, but in his own way, Vermeulen decidedly stated that he preferred to place his own emphasis, and make more cautious, less extreme choices regarding the works he collected in his everyday environment, hinting that he did not want to go ‘as far’ as some of his friends. He also generally bought these works in his own country, but also travelled to Paris for them. His cautious nature of collecting, but also his care for the works in his possession, is shown by the fact that he sought the necessary expertise to contextualise his purchases and keep them in good condition.

The collector and the museum

As a collector, the late Alex Vermeulen was in many ways in tune with the large group of collectors who cherish the museum. Not only was there the shared passion for Western European visual art, but the former professor also often and eagerly talked about the quality and diversity of the museum's collections, the ambience inside the building, the diversity regarding exhibitions, the mounting of the permanent collection.

He frequently recalled visits with friends and (foreign) colleagues; for him, the MSK was undoubtedly an ‘obligatory stop for every visitor to the city of Ghent.’ While he might have been the archetype of the collector who had followed the art market for decades before making himself known, at the same time he spoke with some trepidation about the works of art he had collected around him, downplaying them from the perspective that in time they would add - in his words - only ‘little’ value to the museum collections as a whole. In the first place, he particularly valued the family tradition and cherished Spilliaert's watercolours and pastels that had become his property via his spouse. Also due to his childhood memories of the artists in and around Sint-Martens-Latem, he followed a collecting path taken by several collectors of his generation to collect their work, with Van den Berghe among his favourites. Finally, he had a passion for the post-1945 generation, which intuitively strongly appealed to him. In his villa, he mounted their work alongside that of older artists, without seeking to distinguish between styles and periods. It was obvious to him that the Alechinsky that adorned his study would become part of the MSK's collection. With that argumentation, his bequest to the Friends of the Museum challenges the boundaries of the MSK collection, especially where the final phase of its own collection and the beginning of that of the S.M.A.K. are concerned. Not for the first time in the recent past, the traditional dividing line between the two collections has been called into question by third parties, one collection ending, the other beginning around 1945. As early as 2008, Raoul De Keyser tested the fluctuating boundaries by donating 187 works on paper to the MSK. Both examples demonstrate how artists (and their collectors) still consider it a privilege to connect with a historical collection, as a visual link between yesterday, today and tomorrow.

About Alex Vermeulen

Professor Alex Vermeulen died in Ghent on 20 January 2023. Alex Vermeulen was a brilliant medical practitioner with a long, successful career as chief physician of the University Hospital, professor at Ghent University and dean of his faculty.

Bibliography

_{1 Emile Langui, Frits van den Berghe: 1883–1939; Beschrijvende catalogus van zijn geschilderd oeuvre, Brussel 1966.}

<sub>2 Letter from E. Langui to A. Vermeulen, Brussels 5 November 1971 (MSK, Museum Archives, donation file Alex Vermeulen, 2012)

3 Letter from E. Langui to A. Vermeulen, Knokke-Heist, 22 August 1973 (MSK, Museum Archive, donation file Alex Vermeulen, 2012)

4 See, among others, Matthys-Colle collection, exhib. cat., Deurle (Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens) 2007; POPART: From Warhol to Panamarenko: Collection Matthys-Colle, tent. cat., Gent (S.M.A.K.) 2021.</sub>