page_title: Luc Tuymans
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Luc Tuymans / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: The Diagnostic View IV, 1992. Oil painting on canvas. 57 × 38.2 cm, 22 1⁄2 × 15 1⁄8 inches.
context_page_description: Luc Tuymans is a Belgian visual artist best known for his paintings which explore our relationship with history and confront our seeming ability to ignore it. World War II is a recurring theme in his work. He is a key figure of the generation of European figurative painters who gained renown at a time when many believed the medium had lost its relevance due to the new digital age.
  Much of Tuymans' work deals with moral complexity, specifically the coexistence of 'good' and 'evil'. His subjects range from major historical events such as the Holocaust to the seemingly inconsequential or banal: wallpaper, Christmas decorations or everyday objects for example.
  The artist's sparsely-coloured figurative paintings are made up of quick brush strokes of wet paint. Tuymans paints from photographic or cinematic images drawn from the media or public sphere, as well as from his own photographs and drawings. They often appear intentionally out of focus. The blurred effect is, however, created purposefully with painted strokes, it is not the result of a 'wiping away' technique.
context_section_description: Luc Tuymans was born in Mortsel close to the city of Antwerp on 14 June 1958. His father was Belgian Flemish and his mother was Dutch. During World War II his mother’s family joined the Dutch Resistance and hid refugees, whereas some members of his father’s family allegedly had sympathised with Nazi ideology. This fact echoed through family conversations, raising moral questions and feelings of guilt, and the subject became a source of fascination and fear, later playing a key role in Tuymans' painting.
  His interest in art manifested itself at a young age, and his ability was first recognised during a summer holiday in Zundert, when he won a drawing competition. He later said this event gave him a sense of the path he had to take. When he was eight or nine, his uncle took him to the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague where he saw a painting by Mondrian. In a much later conversation, he explained how 'looking at that abstract painting was my first art experience.... I felt the magic of art in it.... I did understand the monumentality of that work.'
caption: Luc Tuymans, Der diagnostische Blick IV, 1992. Oil on canvas, 57 × 38.2 cm, 22 1⁄2 × 15 1⁄8 inches, Private collection, on long-term loan to De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg
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