About the Artist
Emile Berchmans
Emile Berchmans (1867 - 1947) was a Belgian painter from Liege, Brussels, and one of the main poster artists in Belgium of the early 20th century. He came from an artistic family, his father a painter and his brother a sculptor. He trained in his father's studio and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Liege. He was one of the leading poster artists of Auguste Benard's printing press in Liege: this collaboration between the three artists from Liege and the French printer is the basis of the graphic production that was at the forefront of poster art in Europe in the late 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. in 1904 Berchmans was appointed professor of historical composition and sketching at the Academy of Fine Arts of Liege; he taught painting and decorative arts from 1922; and he was director of the Academy from 1930 to 1934.
