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Endpoint: Ray Gilles



created on: 23/07/2024
by: bob (9873)
 
 

Person properties

General info :
Ray Gilles (born 15 June 1923, Leuven, Belgium - died March 1997, Heist-op-den-berg, Belgium (aged 73)) was a Belgian cartoonist and painter.

Gilles had a very unique drawing style. He combined minimalism with baroque elements, straight lines alternating with folds and curls. Very typical of the figures he drew are the elongated and pliable fingers, the striking noses and eyes.

Prior to his work as an illustrator and cartoonist he was a painter.
From 1940-1941 Ray Gilles studied painting at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Mechelen with Geert Reusens. He then went to Antwerp to perfect his skills at the National Higher Institute for Fine Arts. In Brussels he enrolled at the National Higher Institute for Architecture and Decorative Arts, better known as the Ter Kameren Institute.

He was a contributor to the avant-garde magazine Tijd en Mens from the first issue on in 1949, along with Louis-Paul Boon and Hugo Claus. Around April 1951, after the tenth issue, he left the editorial staff.
After the break with Tijd en Mens he joined the newly founded artists' group Art Abstrait in 1952. Among them were Pol Bury and Jan Burssens.

In the late 1950s he started drawing cartoons. His big breakthrough as a cartoonist came in 1961, when he took part in the fourth Salon of Flemish Humor.

His work was regularly published in Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Italy and Germany. In 1963 he received extensive attention in the German magazine Gebrauchsgraphik , the following year in the German magazine Pardon . In the Italian Bordighera he won a major prize at the oldest cartoon festival in Europe in 1965, the cup of ' la Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri ', personally presented by Prime Minister Aldo Moro . That same year his cartoons travelled to South Africa for an exhibition of Belgian cartoonists. A beautiful collection of his cartoons was published in 1966 under the title Rayquiem .

For three seasons in a row (1971-1973), Gilles designed the posters and programme guides for the Antwerp KNS. He illustrated various book covers.

From 1971 to 1976 he illustrated the 'Sport' magazine from BLOSO.

In 1978 Gilles ventured into a children's book that he wrote and illustrated himself, Druppeltjejan (1978, Davidsfonds, Leuven).

Somewhere in the mid-forties Ray Gilles started a relationship with artist Stella Van der Auwera. They were in the same period at the academy of Mechelen and Antwerp. Shortly afterwards they married. Stella Van der Auwera was also on the editorial staff of Tijd en Mens and after the break she moved to the group Art Abstrait. In her painting she followed the scientific method of her husband. From 1950 until her retirement in 1980 she taught decorative art at the Royal Academy of Mechelen.

In the early 80s Gilles suffered a brain hemorrhage. In 1984 he suffered another heavy blow when his wife Stella died. After that it became very quiet around him.

In 1985, at the initiative of the city council, a tribute retrospective was held in the Mechelen Cultural Centre for Stella van der Auwera and Ray Gilles.

Ray Gilles died in March 1997 in the Ten Kerselaere care centre in Heist-op-den-berg.
Relations :
Married to : Stella Van der Auwera
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Source :
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(1 items)

Item number : 64561

Submitted by : bob (9873)
on : 23/07/2024