Raveel was born in Machelen in 1921, and studied first at the city academy in Deinze before completing his art education at the Fine Arts Academy in Ghent. He first came to public attention as part of the La Relève group in 1948. He later made the acquaintance of artists of the Cobra group which was then the major school in Belgium, but Raveel decided to go his own way, mixing figurative and abstract work, including his characteristic all-white canvases. In the 1960s he became prominent in the New Figuration movement with Raoul De Keyser, which rejected the traditional values of figurative art, going so far as to include actual objects in the work – one of Raveel's works includes a live pigeon in a cage. Mirrors also became a signature: integrated into a painting, they become a way of introducing the external environment into the work, in much the same way as the pigeon does.

Raveel, thanks to the foundation which bears his name, received the highest accolade a living artist can receive when in 1999 a museum devoted to his work opened in his home town. They are currently showing an exhibition centred on Raveel's time in Albisola, a small town on the Ligurian coast of Italy which is considered an international centre for ceramics art, a discipline seen by many as three-dimensional painting. Raveel spent three months there in 1962, and not only put his own stamp on the discipline, but also made contact with many foreign artists from Italy, Cuba and Denmark among others. “Undoubtedly Raveel's activities and international contacts in Albisola had an impact on his later career,” explained Piet Coessens, curator of the exhibition.

Meanwhile at his home in Machelen, the East Flanders tourist office inaugurated a new Roger Raveel walking tour, which brings visitors from the museum through the town, past his old house and the school where he once had his atelier, to some of the surrounding countryside which inspired his art.

www.rogerraveelmuseum.be