Alice Frey (25 June 1895 – 30 August 1981) was a Belgian painter.

Biography

Born in

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

, Frey was one of three children. She was trained as a dressmaker, a trade which she later taught as a school teacher. As with many Belgian families, the Freys left their home in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, moving to

Ostend Ostend ( nl, Oostende, ; french: link=no, Ostende ; german: link=no, Ostende ; vls, Ostende) is a coastal city and municipality, located in the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerk ...

. There Alice met painter James Ensor who became a close friend. Ensor encouraged her interest in art, and after the war she enrolled as student in the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, where she studied drawing and painting. It was as a student that she met her future husband Georges Marlier, himself later a noted art critic and painter. They married in 1922. Together they formed part of a group known as ''Lumière'', which published a journal. A second journal, ''Ça Ira'', was established by Frey, and these formed part of the avant-garde movement in Belgium in the 1920s. Frey's work was widely exhibited in her lifetime. In her later years she became profoundly deaf and lived alone in Ostend. On her death in 1981, much of her work was sold at auction, and only the small collection that she willed to Ostend is readily accessible. Stylistically, Frey's work was influenced by

Marc Chagall Marc Chagall; russian: link=no, Марк Заха́рович Шага́л ; be, Марк Захаравіч Шагал . (born Moishe Shagal; 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with se ...

, Ensor, and

Edgard Tytgat Edgard Tytgat (Brussels, 28 April 1879 – Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, 11 January 1957) was a Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages ...

. Her early works are

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

, while her later work may be closer to magic realism.

References

* Dupont, Pierre-Paul, "FREY, Alice, épouse MARLIER" in E. Gubin, C. Jacques, V. Piette & J. Puissant (eds), ''Dictionnaire des femmes belges: XIX^e et XX^e siècles.'' Bruxelles: Éditions Racine, 2006. {{DEFAULTSORT:Frey, Alice 1895 births 1981 deaths Belgian women painters 20th-century Belgian painters 20th-century Belgian women artists Belgian blind people Painters from Antwerp 20th-century women painters