Louis Phillipe Kamm (French, 1882-1959)

Oil on canvas, titled, signed and dated on the back, “Square in Brussels/ Louis Kamm/ 1932.”

Painting size: 16” x 13”
Frame size: 21.25” x 18”

Painter and professor Louis Phillipe Kamm taught at the School of Decorative Arts in his hometown of Strasbourg. Known for his landscapes of North Alsace, his work is characterized by monumental forms, evidenced by this street scene in Brussels where sturdy figures people a town square surrounded by solidly constructed buildings.

A sculpture of Christ crucified dominates the square. Directly below, a mother holds her young child on her lap, a tender reference to Mary and the infant Jesus. At the foot of the cross, two women chat about their concerns while across the way, another figure draws water at a communal pump. The ease with which the sacred and the everyday are presented-- the cross, the mother and child, the pump--suggest an overall stability in the lives of these people where faith, human relationships and practical matters are threaded together.

Louis Phillipe Kamm is listed in the Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs (Bénézit,1999)