Mon Atelier
(My studio)

1939 - 1942, oil painting on canvas, 45 x 54 cm
Coll. Musée L, Louvain-la-Neuve (Serge Goyens de Heusch donation)
N° inv. 54

The dining-room of the house where he lived with his mother in Schaerbeek and the studio he had upstairs were the theatre for his ghostly figures. Between 1941 and 1943, he produced some oil paintings and a few watercolours which evoke the intimacy of these places, depicted with a falsely naive analytical approach recalling the works of Ensor or Tytgat. The reference to the Ostend master is even more justified by the joyful, bright and contrasted colours used by Bertrand at that time.
In this painting, there are no living figures except for the characters represented in the paintings on the wall and the easel; including Conversation (1938) and the first version of Grande figure debout. Grande figure debout was reworked by the artist a few years later with a clear decorative approach.