Until June 1968 : The Formative Years B Philippe Van Snick is born in Ghent on 16 December 1946.
He lives and works in Ghent until the end of 1971. In 1964, at age 17, Ph. Van Snick leaves the Koninklijk Atheneum (humanities) in Ghent and switches to the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Ghent. — School year 1964-1965 : instructors : Wilfried Sybrandts (painting) / Pierre Vlerick (etching) / Paul Van Gyseghem (drawing).
It was a period of searching. The classroom for painting offered a pleasant context, but it was more like a free learning environment, instead of a studio where art was addressed in a thorough way. [Interviews with Ph.V.S., studio, Brussels, 2006-2009]
— School year 1965-1966 : instructors : Wilfried Sybrandts (painting) / Pierre Vlerick (etching) / Paul Van Gyseghem (drawing). — School year 1966-1967 : instructors : Jan Burssens (painting) / Pierre Vlerick (etching) / Fons De Vogelaere (drawing). — School year 1967-1968 : Ph. Van Snick quits taking painting classes. He only continues doing etching classes taught by Pierre Vlerick, and earns his etching diploma in June 1968. E / I
My interest in art I inherited, so to speak, through my father Jozef Van Snick, who was an amateur painter, as well as through my great-uncle Jozef Van Snick, who at the end of the 19 th century graduated from the Academy of Sint-Niklaas (near Ghent). At home we had a large painting by him on the wall. [Interviews with Ph.V.S., studio, Brussels, 2006-2009]
A first exhibition that very much impresses the young Ph. Van Snick is Picasso : Guernica, avec 60 études et variantes / met 60 studies en varianten, Brussels, Paleis voor Schone Kunsten / Palais des Beaux-Arts, May-June 1956 (subsequently on view in Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, July – September 1956). He visits this exhibition with an aunt who gives him the catalog (with texts of Daniel Henry Kahnweiler and Emile Languy). As a child at age 10-11, Ph. Van Snick makes drawings “in the manner of Picasso” for some time. In addition, he creates other works, such as De vier jaargetijden (oil on Styropor). His fascination for the work of Picasso lasts until age 15, when as a third-year high school student (Rijks Middelbare School in Oostakker, near Ghent) he receives drawing lessons from Jan Hoet ; in this context he creates a copy of Guernica (canvas, c. 110 × 80 cm), for which another teacher makes a frame. Around age 16, Ph. Van Snick starts attending lectures organized by the Vereniging van het Museum voor Schone Kunsten and Paul Eeckhout, the conservator, at the Museum
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Chronology
1960 -1969