"View in Gent" 
Piet Lippens (Belgian, 1890-1981) 
Circa 1920s
Oil on canvas, signed lower left
23 3/8 x 19 3/8 (24 x 28 frame) inches
 
Piet Lippens was a Post Impressionist painter from Belgium, born in Gentbrugge in 1890 and died in Ghent in 1981. 
At the age of 17, Lippens left for New York City. After the War, he visited again and ultimately settled in Chicago for several months. During his military service he learned to draw and paint in his spare time at the Academy in Tournai under Chantry and Pion. Then left for the USA, this time to Chicago. When he returned to Belgium, he took lessons for several months at the Academy in Ghent under J. Delvin and at Sint-Lucas. 
 
Lippens most realized works are landscapes, cities, and village corners. His works from the 1920s and 1930s, which are considered to be his best, utilize a darker pallet depicting factories, slums, barracks, prisons, shipyards, mills and caravans under a moody, gray sky. On his canvases he created a bold impasto by utilizing generous amounts of thick paint. 
 
His works appear monumental, powerful, and sometimes hallucinatory. Throughout his life he would remain faithful to the realistic-impressionist style that he always appreciated, his work became more colorful and less melancholy in later years. Then he painted countless farms, castles and chapels. From the press: “His affection goes to weathered facades, vacant lots and ghostly factories on the outskirts of the suburbs.” 
 
His work can be found in the Museum of Fine Art in Ghent, Belgium.