Frans Van Leemputten

Frans Van Leemputten or Frans van Leemputten (Werchter, 29 December 1850 – Antwerp, 26 November 1914) was a Belgian Realist painter who specialized in landscape paintings of the Campine and Brabantine regions in Belgium as well as scenes with villagers and animals.

Frans Van Leemputten was born in Werchter as the son of Jan Frans Van Leemputten and Maria Catharina Van Cleynenbreugel. His father was originally a farmer but moved to Brussels in 1852 to become a painting restorer as he had an interest and some practice in art. Frans and his older brother Cornelius were encouraged by their father to practise art. In 1855 the family briefly moved to Antwerp where the young Frans attended classes at the Antwerp Academy. In 1858 the family moved back to Brussels where Frans worked mainly in his father's restoration shop.

Van Leemputten took evening classes at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels from 1865 to 1873. Here he was a student of Paul Lauters. Lauters encouraged Van Leemputten to paint from nature rather than to copy old compositions. Under the influence of Constantin Meunier and the Dutch landscape painter Paul Gabriël who was then living in Brussels and the reading of Hendrik Conscience's novels which extolled the virtues of the peasants of the Campine, Van Leemputten started to devote himself almost exclusively to the depiction of that region and its inhabitants. Frans became a member of the drawing club 'La Patte de Dindon'.

In 1872 Van Leemputten made his debut at the salon of La Chrysalide, the group to which also James Ensor, Louis Artan and Guillaume Vogels belonged. He also joined 'L'Essor', a group which mainly promoted realism and assisted its members financially and with the organization of exhibitions and the purchase of materials. Through his membership of these two groups Van Leemputten was closely linked to some of the most progressive Belgian artists of his day. From 1874 he submitted works to the Antwerp salon.

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