Luc Tuymans

Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans, opening of his exhibition "Against the Day" at WIELS Contemporary Art Center, Brussels, April 2009.
Born	1958 Mortsel, Belgium
Nationality	Belgian
Known for	Contemporary art

Luc Tuymans (born 1958) is a Belgian artist who lives and works in Antwerp. Tuymans is considered one of the most influential painters working today. His signature figurative paintings transform mediated film, television, and print sources into examinations of history and memory.

In January 2015, Tuymans was found guilty of plagiarism by a Belgian civil court after he used a photograph taken by Katrijn Van Giel as the source for his painting "A Belgian Politician" (2011), a portrait of Belgian politician Jean-Marie Dedecker. Tuymans appealed the ruling claiming that that painting was protected under parody grounds, and was a critique of Belgian conservatism, the pair came to a reportedly amicable but confidential out-of-court settlement in October 2015.

Tuymans was born in Mortsel near Antwerp, Belgium. Tuymans's mother's family had worked in the Dutch resistance and hid refugees. His Belgian Flemish father later revealed that two of his brothers had been in the Hitler Youth. Tuymans began his studies in the fine arts at the Sint-Lukasinstituut in Brussels in 1976. At the age of 19 Tuymans encountered a series of El Greco paintings in Budapest while working as a guard for a European railway company. Subsequently he studied fine arts at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Visuels de la Cambre in Brussels, Belgium (1979–1980) and at the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp, Belgium (1980–1982). He abandoned painting in 1982, studying art history at the Vrije Universiteit, Brussels (1982–6), and spent three years experimenting with video and film until 1985.

Tuymans emerged in at a time when there were not many new contemporary painters making, or using imagistic paintings; others include John Currin or Elizabeth Peyton. Tuymans' subjects range from major historical events, such as the Holocaust or the politics of the Belgian Congo, to the inconsequential and banal - wallpaper patterns, Christmas decorations, everyday objects. Tuymans first made his mark in the 1980s, when he began to explore Europe's memories of World War II with harsh, elegant paintings like Gas Chamber (1986), which depicts the Dachau concentration camp. His "Heritage paintings", inspired by a mood which he perceived in the US after the Oklahoma City bombing, depict normal, almost stereotypical American imagery, for example: two baseball caps; Mount Rushmore; the image of a man working; a portrait; a birthday cake; the series also included a portrait of wealthy Ku Klux Klansman Joseph Milteer. The artist later aroused interest in 2000 with his series of political paintings titled Mwana Kitoko ("beautiful boy"), which take themes out of the state visit of King Baudouin of Belgium in the Congo in the 1950s. The works were exhibited in 2000 at the David Zwirner Gallery and the following year in the Belgian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The most noted painting was of the king himself in his white military uniform.