Gaston-JeanLéon-Joseph-Lucien-Hubert Bertrand was born in Wonck-sur-Geer (which was at the time located in the Limburg Province and is now part of the Liège Province) on 2 September at 8 p.m. He is the second son of Jean-Pierre Bertrand (46 years old, born on 25 August 1864 in Houtain-Saint-Siméon, not far from Wonck) and of MarieEmilie-Hubertine Roebroeck (31 years old, born on 13 September 1879 in Heer, the Netherlands). His father runs a small straw braids company in Wonck.

The family life is deeply disrupted by the death of the father who was 57 years old.

The young Gaston Bertrand and his brother Edouard (born on 16 June 1909), who is one year older than him, are sent to boarding school at the College of Visé where they complete primary school.

Marie Bertrand and her two sons move into a house at 97 Joly Street in Schaerbeek (Brussels). She enrols her sons in the Institut Notre-Dame of Cureghem, where Gaston Bertrand spends the three first years of secondary school following the Greco-Latin humanities programme.

Gaston Bertrand was embarrassed to be dependent on his mother and decided to leave school and to find small jobs. He simultaneously enrols in the Saint-Luc School of Molenbeek-Saint-Jean to take advertising and decoration courses. He follows these courses up to 1931, when he draws his first sketches.

He is called upon to serve as a soldier of the militia within the 12th line regiment in Liège.

After being put on leave and then « laid off » by the army due to his disease, Bertrand convalesces in Ostend during the first months of the year, a period during which he draws a series of pencil sketches. He then comes back to Brussels (many sketches representing the Bois de la Cambre, the Royal Park and the Botanique) and enrols at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts.

At the Brussels Academy, he takes drawing classes and theoretical courses. His teachers are Henry Van Haelen and Anto Carte.
Alongside the pedagogical exercises, he keeps drawing sketches: scenes of workshop (including with Nicolas de Staël), at the Toone theatre, in Damme and in Bruges. He also produces his first linoengravings and then wood engravings as well etchings experiments and his first watercolours (views of Bruges).

First oil painting experiments.

Bertrand for the first time participates in collective exhibitions: 16th Fair of the Cercle artistique of Schaerbeek, at the Cercle artistique of Tournai and at the Belgian Xylographer’s Association in Brussels.

He takes part in the courses given by Henri Ottevaere (director) and Gustave Fontaine at the Ecole des Arts du Dessin (Drawing School) of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, where he reconnects with his colleague from the Brussels Academy, Emile Mahy, and makes friends with Louis Van Lint and Anne Bonnet.
Enriched by the live models workshops, Bertrand starts painting a series of nudes. He also paints La Porte de Schaerbeek, one of his first pictorial achievements.

He is admitted to the Grand Concours de Rome and presents ten paintings (two nudes, two portraits and views of Brussels): He is awarded with the fourth mention of the Prize which corresponded to 8,000 Belgian francs intended to finance a study period abroad that Bertrand chose to undertake in Paris the following year.

He stays one month in Paris and produces a series of drawings and seven paintings inspired by views of the Tuileries.
Together with Louis Van Lint, Anne Bonnet, René Mels, Renée Petit and Charles Pry (who initiated the event), he participates in the exhibition L’Art Jeune, which was organised at the Brussels Atrium Gallery, and exhibits seven paintings and three drawings.
He meets Betty De Borger, who was born in 1910 in a family hailing from Willebroeck and who lives in his street. Together, they sometimes go to have good time at the Rossignols, an establishment located in the Bois de la Cambre where Gaston Bertrand produces a series of ink drawings.

First art piece purchased by the State: Tuileries (Escaliers aux Tuileries), a painting that had been realized the previous year.
Together with Louis Van Lint and Anne Bonnet, Gaston Bertrand co-founds the group La Route Libre which organized its sole exhibition the following year. During the month of June, he goes on holidays to Coxyde with his mother and then with Betty. He produces a series of gouaches during his stay. In September, he stays at the Home des Artistes-Meyer Foundation in Saint-Idesbald. From the end of that year up to May 1940, he makes a stay in the sanatorium “Rose de la Reine” in Buizingen.

On 14 May, Gaston Bertrand unsuccessfully tries to meet with Betty and, two days later, he has to go to Courtay because of the war. He returns to Brussels on 2 June.
He participates, together with Louis Van Lint, Anne Bonnet, Carlos Lenaerts, Renée Petit and Henri Dresselaers, in the sole exhibition organized by La Route Libre at the Toison d’Or Gallery in Brussels (March).
He paints one of his first masterpieces, Le Portrait de ma mère en pieds.

He takes evening courses at the Saint-Josse-ten-Noode School where he wins the silver medal (Van Cutsem Prize).

On 28 May, his brother Edouard dies of tuberculosis in Grimbergen on the eve of his 33 years.
Walter Schwarzenberg, former animator of the Gallery Le Centaure, invites Gaston Bertrand to organize his first personal exhibition at the Dietrich Gallery in Brussels (May).
The painter participates in the exhibition Apport 42 which is henceforward organized, on the initiative of Robert Delevoy, at the Apollo Gallery (July).

Gaston Bertrand continues and completes his painting La grande plage, which was later purchased by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.
On 21 July, he is exempt from compulsory labour in Germany due to his lung problems.
On 3 September, Robert Delevoy signs a contract with the artist for the purchase of a series of works by the Apollo Gallery as well as advantageous conditions for future exhibitions at the Gallery.