On 11 August 1881, Jean Baptiste Léopold Colin, son of Jean Baptiste Colin and Elisabeth Deklerck, was born in a Brussels working-class district as the fourth child in a family that was to number six children1. After the birth of Jean, the couple settled in Anderlecht, a formerly independent Brussels municipality where the family resided for more than twenty-two years. The only surviving members of the Colin family are the descendants of his sister Colette Henriette, because, like Jean himself, his other three sisters and brother remained childless. In 1909, Colette married the painter Camille Maximilien Laurent (1885-1967). They had two daughters: Elisabeth and Susanne. Elisabeth also remained childless; therefore, the only living descendants of the Colin family are Susanne’s children: Huguette and Nicole Lebrun2. Jean Colin grew up in a cultivated and art-loving environment. His parents ran an antique shop and auctioneering firm in the Nieuwstraat in Brussels (#049). He was brought up to appreciate arts and crafts. Jean’s sister Colette became a costume designer for theatre companies and such, and later married, as was mentioned earlier, the (lesser-known) painter Camille Laurent. Jean’s brother François became a frame-maker. Colette’s two daughters also had artistic ambitions: Elisabeth studied the piano and singing at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels; Susanne was a gifted pianist and also played the double bass. Copyright © Marc Pairon: Impressionism :Hidden Masterpieces of Jean Colin

From the twelfth to the twenty-fourth year of his life, Jean Colin studied art at the Anderlecht drawing school, with – among others – S’Jonghers, De Keyzer and Baeten as his teachers 1 . Infor- mation about the years 1890-1894 is missing, but we know that from October 1894 until 1897 Colin received tuition in Dessin objets industriels [Design engineering], and that during the school year 1898-1899 he followed the course in Torse antique-dessin [ Drawing from antique busts], for which he received a second honourable mention. In that same year, he received tuition in Peinture decora- tive [Decorative painting] and Composition [Composition], for which he received a third honourable mention as well as first prize5. In 1899-1900, the lessons Peinture nature [Drawing from nature] and Figure antique [From antique figures] followed and he finished the course Histoire du costume [History of costume] with a first honourable mention. In 1900-1901, Colin perfected himself in the Figure antique and started the lessons Peinture d’après nature [Drawing from nature], which yielded him a joint honorary place for ‘composition’. During the school year 1901-1902, Colin attended Modelage tête antique [Moulding from antique heads]6. 1 The only person on this short list about whom we were able to retrieve sufficient information is Ernest S’Jonghers (1886-1931), whose name is linked to a municipal square in Anderlecht, where in 1887 he became a designer-architect at the Office of Public Works, after which he was appointed municipal architect. Among other buildings, he was the architect of the Justice of the Peace Court. In 1905, Jean signed up at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts [Royal Academy of Fine Arts] in Brussels, where he was taught by the versatile artist Isidore Verheyden 2 during the last year of the latter’s life. Verheyden belonged to the second generation of Realist painters in Belgium, but he also regularly embarked on impressionistic experiments. Jean Colin looked up to that master for the rest of his life and also developed a wide range of talents himself, by painting – for example – landscapes, seascapes, still lifes, figures and family scenes. Yet, in order to earn a living as an artist, Colin, like Verheyden, was to produce commissioned portraits during the whole of his career. For all those who want to make their passion into a profession, this was part of the compromises. Isidore Verheyden’s career as a teacher at the Brussels Académie was short-lived. In 1900, he was appointed as the first teacher of ‘drawing from nature’. In 1904, he got a four-year contract as Director, but he died a year later, in 1905, Jean’s first school year at the academy. Nevertheless, Colin often referred to his teacher Isidore Verheyden in the press as if he had been taught by this man for many years, because his teaching and his oeuvre had made a deep impression on him. He would continue to ‘adore’ him throughout his career. 2 Isidore Verheyden (1846-1905), a versatile Belgian painter. His circle of friends included a large number of Belgian modernist artists of the time, such as James Ensor (1860-1949), Théo Van Rysselberghe (1862-1926) and Anna Boch (1848-1936). Copyright © Marc Pairon: Impressionism :Hidden Masterpieces of Jean Colin

Jean Colin was of course a Brussels artist. After all, he lived in Brussels all his life. Until 1909 he lived with his parents, at Nieuwstraat 42 (#049 and #084). From 1909 to 1916 he lived at Treurenbergstraat 16 and, until 1928, at Markiesstraat 9. After this, he moved to Korte Hulpstraat 3 in Schaerbeek, to quarters where the Franco-Belgian artist Ernest Blanc-Garin32 used to have a renowned art school. In 1935 and 1936, Colin lived for a short time at Faiderstraat 29 in Ixelles, after which he moved to Liefdadigheidsstraat 37 in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, where he spent the rest of his life. Colin’s last address was on the first floor of Mommen Studios, where both his living quarters and his workroom were. Mommen Studios had been established by Félix Mommen, a Limburg fine furniture maker, who had specialised in the production and the sale of materials to visual artists. From 1874, he had a property built in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode where such equipment was produced and sold, while at the same time providing – at a reasonable rent – living quarters and workrooms for artists. Artists such as Théo Van Rysselberghe, Rik Wouters en Xavier Mellery lived there for a time. That way, Établissements Mommen became a unique combination of a factory and a wholesale and retail business for artists’ materials with exhibition areas and studios. Artists were generously pampered. They even used a northerly oriented architectural style for the studios to facilitate the required incidence of light, and all specific requests – up to and including the production of canvases for panoramas – were granted. The resident artists even had a married couple as care- takers. Obviously, it was an extraordinarily attractive meeting point in those days; it was even called ‘Brussels Montmartre’. 32 Born in the north of France, Ernest Blanc-Garin (1843-1916), the painter of – among other works – town- scapes and genre paintings, had permanently settled in Brussels in 1871. In 1883, he opened a studio for female and male students there. They were taught separately: the men had their classrooms on the ground floor, the women on the first floor. For decency’s sake, each classroom had its own entrance. Copyright © Marc Pairon: Impressionism :Hidden Masterpieces of Jean Colin

Within the family, it is mainly Nicole Lebrun, the granddaughter of Colin’s sister Colette, and her husband Bernard Évrard, who want to honour Jean Colin’s artistic memory through collecting his work and original documents. Jean Colin’s in-laws have also supplied works, documents and statements for the biographical content of the present publication. In 1937, Jean, by then fifty-six years old, finally married his favourite model Hortensia Martens3. As mentioned earlier on, this marriage did not produce any children. Hortensia had four sisters and two brothers, including Louis (b. 1884), who had one daughter: Leonie. Leonie Martens (1908-1992) married Maurits Rawoens (1909-1988) and three children were born from this marriage: Achiel (b. 1931), Marcella (1935-2012) and Ginette (b. 1949). Achiel is the last direct witness to have known Jean Colin and his wife personally, as he was thirty when Jean Colin passed away. Achiel may be considered the head of the extended family – to which nephews and nieces should be added –, most of whom own or owned Jean Colin’s works. Like Nicole Lebrun and her husband Bernard Évrard, Achiel has always been one of Jean Colin’s passionate devotees. These two branches – Achiel was not even aware that there were still other living members of Jean Colin’s family – each own a number of paintings, including a few absolute masterpieces that they had preserved or even bought back. They also owned – and this is at least equally important – numerous original documents from Jean Colin’s estate, including pictures of his studio and family photographs, authentic black-and-white pictures of the oeuvre, drawings and sketches, catalogues, newspaper clippings and correspondence. A Belgian serviceman by profession, Achiel Rawoens was appointed a Nato attaché in Decem- ber 1956. For this reason, he settled in Virginia, near Washington DC, where he has lived ever since. In September 2016, I visited this ‘last witness’ for the first time. His house was a virtual museum of personal memories, with each object occupying a prominent place, as if it were a treasure. Obviously, he also owned a collection of paintings, drawings, sketches and original photographs of his great-uncle’s oeuvre, in which his great-aunt often figured. Even authentic objects which had been depicted in some of the paintings were lovingly displayed, such as the antique lace shawl from 1622 worn by great-aunt Hortensia in the portrait La Dame en noir [The lady in black]4, a special earthenware jug which features in several of Jean Colin’s still lifes, a red coral necklace which served – with other objects – as an accessory for the painting Petit déjeuner dans le jardin [Breakfast in the garden] (#045), authentic painter’s tools and much more. It goes without saying that Achiel greatly appreciated his great-uncle’s art works, especially those which depict his own great-aunt, but – like most of the objects in his private museum – they were first and foremost of emotional value to him. The art-historical significance was of secondary importance. In spite of a few health problems, the ‘last witness’ radiated a pure zest for life. For instance, a military report at the time reproached him for being ‘giggly’. Not surprisingly, we spent the next three days relishing the memory of his still exceptionally vivid memories of Jean Colin and the numerous juicy anecdotes from his own life. Until the present publication, little was known about Jean Colin’s life and work; and even some of this limited amount of information proved to be incorrect. But thanks to the comprehensive family archive – with additional information from public collections –, the information handed down by Susanne Laurent (to whom this book is dedicated) and Achiel Rawoens’ testimony, we were able to put together the biographical jigsaw of Jean Colin’s life. We may count ourselves lucky, for it will become clear that this material fills a gap in Belgian art history, certainly so when one becomes acquainted with the visual material of the initially ‘hidden’ masterpieces in Jean Colin’s oeuvre. Copyright © Marc Pairon: Impressionism :Hidden Masterpieces of Jean Colin