COULON (Berthe). Lot n° 3

"Crowd of Umbrellas". Oil on panel, signed in the lower right corner. Size of support and subject: 105 x 80 cm. Berthe Coulon started painting at the age of 60 and in ten years painted about three hundred pictures. Her style is close to naive painting. Her compositions are often made up of crowds that seem to be carried away by a mysterious undulation. Berthe Coulon was a concert pianist and had a nameless fear of the public; her paintings are a way to exorcise this fear. She is also inspired by bullfights, cathedrals, Eddy Merckx's performances, Ensor's masks. She stages figures, both human and diabolical, and skeletons create in some paintings an atmosphere close to that of the work of Michel de Ghelderode.