Hubert Malfait artwork • painting • previously for sale Figures in a village street

As the son of the municipal secretary of Astene, Hubert Malfait came into contact with Emile Claus at a young age, who gave him his first lessons in outdoor painting and light observation. Then, in the 1920s, the luministic realism of his early work gave way to expressionism under the influence of the Latem painters Gustave De Smet, Frits Van den Berghe and Constant Permeke. Together with Jules De Sutter, among others, Malfait subsequently developed into an important representative of the Tweede Latemse Groep. Decisive for his career was the meeting with critics André De Ridder, Paul-Gustave van Hecke and Georges Marlier on the occasion of the exhibition 'Laethemsche kunstenaarskolonie', which was held in 1924 in the old studio of Gustave van de Woestyne in Sint-Martens-Latem. In their criticism he was seen as the standard-bearer of a new generation of expressionists, who continued the formal examples of De Smet, Van den Berghe and Permeke. As early as 1927, Hubert Malfait had an individual exhibition in the Le Centaure gallery in Brussels. In his expressionist oeuvre, three periods are generally distinguished. .