Louis Dewis (1872–1946) has been described as one of the most sincere landscape painters of the 20th century. The Post-Impressionist was born in Belgium but lived the last 60 years of his life in France. Dewis was a child prodigy – showing astonishing talent at the age of eight. Mature painters would have been proud to produce the works that Dewis was creating as a teenager. But circumstances cons
pired against an art career – and he did not begin to exhibit until the age of 43. Louis Dewis was the pseudonym for Isidore Louis Dewachter, who went by “Louis.” He was born in Leuze, Belgium, the son of Isidore Louis Dewachter (who used his first name) and Eloise Desmaret Dewachter. Isidore and two brothers created the world’s first chain department stores in four locations in Belgium in 1875 – about a quarter of a century before Woolworth adopted the concept in the United States. Louis Dewachter spent his formative years in Liege, Belgium, where his closest boyhood friend was Richard Heintz (1871–1929), who also became an internationally known landscape artist. Although the name “Dewachter” may have Flemish roots, Dewachter always considered himself a Walloon. Isidore was embarrassed that his son would waste his time with something as "useless" as painting. In a vain attempt to break his young son of this “bad habit,” the elder Dewachter would, on occasion, destroy or throw away the boy’s canvases, paints, and brushes. Young Louis’ love of art could not be deterred. It could, however, be overwhelmed by business and family responsibilities. As the eldest son, Louis was expected to take over the family business, the chain of clothing stores called Maisons Dewachter (Houses of Dewachter). This was a duty that his father would not allow him to shirk. Dewis would come to manage the flagship store in Bordeaux – one of the Maisons Dewachter in 20 cities across France and Belgium. Locations were typically run by family relations. Louis was ultimately responsible for the management of 15 of the branches. By the end of World War I, his father had passed away. Louis sold his interest in the business and took up painting full time. He adopted the pseudonym Louis Dewis so as not to confuse the millions of patrons of the Dewachter department stores. He kept the first name – "Louis" – adding a last name created by the first three letters of Dewachter and the first two letters of his first name "Isidore." Hence, Louis Dewis, which is pronounced lew-EE dew-EES. For the next 20 years, until the onset of the Second World War, Dewis’s landscapes were shown regularly at exhibitions across Western Europe and North Africa. They attracted favorable reviews in the international press, purchases from major museums, and the highest decorations from the governments of three countries. However, the highest achievement of fame eluded him. Because he didn’t need the money — and because of his father’s opposition — Dewis did not promote his art in his young adulthood. His later career was marked by public relations misfortune, including the untimely death of his sponsor, the influential French art promoter Georges Petit (Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Rodin, Sisley, and Whistler). As a result, Dewis’s work was highly regarded and well-reviewed but not heavily promoted. Louis Dewachter married Elisabeth Florigni in 1896. His elder daughter Yvonne married a widowed American army officer just after the Great War and moved to the States in 1926. His younger daughter and only other child, Andrée, married French businessman Jérôme Ottoz, who proved to be less than supportive of his talented father-in-law. At Dewis’s death in 1946, Andrée carefully crated up some 450 of her father’s paintings and the entire contents of his atelier, which Jérôme then packed away, out of sight and out of mind, in the attic of their Paris condominium building. Almost exactly 50 years later – in 1996 – Andrée and an American great-nephew opened the crates and resolved to return Dewis’s work to the public, an effort that resulted in 1998’s Dewis Rediscovered – an exhibition held at the Courthouse Galleries in Portsmouth, Virginia. The Belgian ambassador to the United States, Alexis Reyn, was an honored guest. He requested the loan of three Dewis paintings for permanent display in his country’s embassy in Washington, DC. The ambassador personally selected the pieces – including one for his office and a large painting of the Ardennes that was the only art on display in the anteroom.
