Edward
Van Mieghem, an etcher, well-thought and refined in all his
subjects, no etching technique is him a mystery.
Edward Van Mieghem
is born in Vrasene on September 13th 1915 and since
1943, he lives in Brasschaat. He is a far relative
of the well known Antwerp artist 'Eugéne Van Mieghem',
who in his time was honored for
copying the hard life of the harbour workers on
paintings and paper. The grandfather of Eugéne Van
Mieghem and the great grandfather of Edward Van
Mieghem were brothers.
The live of
the artist started in Brazil between 1927-1930. The
parents of Edward moved out there, following some
family, to run a coffee plantation. In those times,
Edward stayed at a boarding house of the religious
Norbertines. There he was called the 'Vlaamse Gaai',
with this words they probably meant that
he was a real active someone. His mother could
directly recognize his classroom table since it was
full of little drawings.
In 1930 there
was a huge general crisis and so Edwards parents were
forced to return to Belgium. He started taking a
drawing course for four years on the Royal Academy
for Fine Arts in Antwerp. There he drew natural,
well-formed and shadow techniques. He was taught by
Alfons Van Beurden, Carlos De Roover and Ernest
Wante.
Except being
an artist, he also had a real profession. Since he
worked at the Ministry of Finances and he had a
family with four kids, the paintings once in a while
had to move for the pressure of work and family life.
Then he went
to the Drawing Academy of Saint-Michael in
Brasschaat, from that moment on he could not stop
anymore. In 1971 he got his diploma in the education of
art, division Painting and in 1974 he got his degree of
Etching techniques. In 1991 and 1994 he even got more
specialization grades.
In the past, a
lot of just married couples and also others, received
an etching from Edward as a marriage present from the
town government. That is why Van Mieghem created a lot
of etches from a diversity of nostalgic places in
Brasschaat. We will name a couple: farm
den
Elshout,
Castle Mishagen, The
house of Hendrik Luyten, The
Foresters house, An old
Dovecot,
Mishaegendreef, Moeder
Mie
and Eikelenberg.
The Vleminck
Tower in Wijnegem, an etching vernis-mou covers the
front page of the local cultural magazine 'Jan Vleminck'.
It is also from this work that a
first day stamp was designed for the stampshow on
March 25th and 26th 1978, organized by the local
collectors club. Since 1998, one of his etches covers
our local cultural magazine of 'Breesgata', the
historical society from Brasschaat.
Van Mieghem
didn't work in just one style. The etching
experiments still enlarge now he is getting older.
His inspiration has no fronts and creates little
pearls like Karnaval in Venetië 2 and Karnaval
in Venetië IX,
a series of 13, all with a total diversity in
materials. Living, people and life around Van Mieghem
were and still are the central issues in his work,
such as in I have
seen a thousand faces, Vanitas
2, No
Theater 5,
Don
Quijote,
Renaissance
and
Dresden.
Since a couple of years, his knowledge and experience is
modestly caried over to the Seniors of Brasschaat.
An illustrated catalogue of this artist is published
and a couple of his works are available in a series of
6 postcards, both of them by the Jan Frans Simons society.
