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Behind the big strokes he loved,
one can always sense a pulsating emotion, because
Dewis painted with his heart as much as with his brushes.
The Journal of Biarritz and the Basque Coast, 1946

The influential French art promoter Georges Petit took a keen interest in Dewis – insisting that he stop wasting his life "selling clothes." Petit had ascended to international prominence devising the series of Expositions internationales de Peinture, the first of which was held in 1882. These events attracted the likes of Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, John Singer Sargent, Alfred Sisley and James McNeill Whistler. When World War I ended in 1918, Petit essentially demanded that Dewis sell his interest in Maisons Dewachter and "come paint for me in Paris and I will make you famous." By then, Dewis had been freed of the dictates of his father who passed away before the Great War. Under the unrelenting pressure of Petit and the famed Belgian author and art critic Henry Dommartin who also insisted that Dewis was wasting his extraordinary gift, the artist finally acceded to their wishes. He moved to Paris in the spring of 1919 to put his career in the hands of Petit. But, within a year, the great marchand d'art (art dealer) was dead and Louis was, once again, on his own. For the next 20 years, until the onset of the Second World War, Dewis's landscapes were shown regularly at exhibitions across Western Europe and North Africa. His work attracted favorable reviews in the international press and the highest decorations from the governments of three countries...."singing" landscapes attract the eye. This is how he must paint, with no other care than to allow his soul to vibrate like a bird, in the light...
The Twentieth Century (Brussels), 1916
The highest achievement of fame eluded Dewis, as the Belgian's work would never be heavily promoted. By the end of the 1920s, Dewis had reconciled himself to this reality, and happily so. As he told his family, "I paint as the bird sings" – for the sheer joy of expressing his emotions. Collectors and museums from Europe, the French colonies, South America and Japan continued to purchase his paintings – and critics continued to rave.Few landscape artists, in my opinion, among our modern painters, reach such a profound expression of truth in a finer art form.
Modern Review of the Arts and Life (Paris), 1921
Dewis and his family fled Paris for the South West shortly before the Nazi occupation of 1940, initially staying with relatives in Bayonne. They heard of a large residence with lovely gardens that was becoming available in the nearby resort city of Biarritz. With the onset of war, the American expatriate owner was heading back to the US, so he was anxious to sell the home that he had named for his wife: Villa Pat. It was here that Dewis would paint for the last seven years of his life.The art of Louis Dewis appears in the magnificent maturity of a learned and profound spirit of observation put at the service of a firm technique, devoid of any indication of contrivances in pursuit of effects.
Everything proves that among our Belgian artists, Dewis does not occupy a secondary position.
The Latest News (Brussels), 1929
Biarritz wasn't far from Bordeaux, where Dewis had lived from the age of 14 to his marriage and from 1908-1919. He was once again inspired by the countryside of the Pays Basque. Since travel was greatly limited during the occupation, Dewis often found his subjects within his own garden, in nearby parks and along the Atlantic coast. Louis Dewis died of cancer at Villa Pat in late 1946.All this represents painting, imposing, rich in colors, the painting of a master.
Nature, here, lives in grandiose, serious, intimate, and welcoming allures, it is very beautiful and very seductive.
Biarritz Gazette, 1940
Andrée was intent on preserving everything related to her beloved father's artistic career. She carefully crated up the entire contents of his atelier in Biarritz and transferred them to the attic of her 19th century condominium building in Paris' 17th arrondissement. The sturdy wooden boxes were placed in a locked room that was originally designed as maid's quarters. There they would sit, untouched, for nearly 50 years. In 1996 – Andrée and an American great-nephew opened the crates and resolved to return Dewis's work to the public. In the ensuing years, more than 125 Dewis works found in his daughter's attic have been cleaned and framed. The first result of the effort was 1998's Dewis Rediscovered – an exhibition held at the Courthouse Galleries in Portsmouth, Virginia.A great painter has just passed away in Biarritz: Louis Dewis.
The man was as good as the painter...
Through his acclaimed talent, he brought something new to this region, for which, as well as for the painting, his death is a great sorrow.
Sud Ouest (Bordeaux), 1946
The Belgian ambassador to the United States, Alex Reyn, was an honored guest. He requested the loan of three Dewis paintings for permanent display in his country's embassy in Washington, DC. The ambassador personally selected the pieces – including one for his office and a large painting of the Ardennes that was the only art exhibited in the principal public waiting area. Dr. Linda McGreevy, the Chair of the Art Department at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia – and an expert on French art between the two world wars – wrote the catalogue essays for the first two Dewis exhibits in America.Click here for the YouTube video on 1998's "Dewis Rediscovered" exhibition.
(Approximately 8 minutes)
Click at extreme left of red playback bar for 10-minute version with more background information.
[Dewis] seems poised ... to claim a place in modernism's broader trajectory ... his luminous paintings ... may well receive the recognition their creator deserved long ago.
Professor Linda McGreevy, 2002
Dewis’s work does not fit neatly within today’s familiar narrative of 20th-century European modernism, but in his own time, his work would have been seen as the mainstream of French art ... So the work of this accomplished painter can provide new insights about the period in which he worked.
Orlando Museum of Art Curator Hansen Mulford, quoted in the Orlando Sentinel, March 26, 2019