A monumental double sided oil on canvas by Belgian painter and sculptor Firmin Vandewoude (1907–1994).
The principal composition depicts a standing female nude against a deep blue ground, accompanied by a large green bird-like form and a second, mask like head. The flattened forms, elongated figure and strong blocks of colour give the painting an almost dreamlike, symbolic quality.
An old label attached to the stretcher is inscribed “Judith, Séduction et Drame” (Judith, Seduction and Drama), which appears to relate to the principal composition.
Remarkably, Vandewoude also painted the reverse of the canvas, which carries a second large figurative composition of a kneeling woman in a bathing costume.
Firmin Vandewoude (1907–1994) was a Belgian painter and sculptor who trained at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, where his teachers included the sculptor Victor Rousseau's generation of influential Belgian academicians and the Symbolist painter Constant Montald.
At the age of 23 Vandewoude received the prestigious Prix Godecharle. His early career was principally devoted to sculpture, including commissions for the Belgian state, municipalities and private patrons, and he produced monumental work for the Brussels International Exposition of 1935.
Following the Second World War, Vandewoude increasingly turned towards painting and drawing while continuing his work as a sculptor. His paintings include nudes, mythological and allegorical subjects, portraits and landscapes, often characterised by simplified forms, elongated figures and an unusual, highly individual use of colour.
His public sculptural work survives in Belgium. Among the documented examples is the panoramic orientation monument he designed for Parc Jupiter in Forest, Brussels, in 1957.
Vandewoude continued working across both painting and sculpture throughout his career and died in 1994.
