Collector Tony Herbert (1902–1959) assembled a group of works still recognized today as the most coherent embodiment of Flemish Expressionism. His collection was mainly dedicated to six artists around whom he formed significant ensembles of works: Jean Brusselmans, Gustave De Smet, Constant Permeke, Edgard Tytgat, Frits Van den Berghe and Rik Wouters. Tony Herbert was not only a passionate collector of their finest works, but also an influential promoter of their art. His house was entirely dedicated to them, often open to art lovers, and his residence, known as The Sporenhof in Kortrijk, soon became a true private museum. In 1928, Tony Herbert settled there when he became head of the Kortrijk cotton spinning mill Delbaere-Mulier. The beginnings of the collection were guided by the intellectual legacy of his father-in-law, Lodewijk Sharpé, a Germanist philologist and collector of artists from the Leie region, including Gustave Van de Woestyne. … After focusing on the six leading artists of his collection — he even acquired more than sixty paintings and drawings by Gustave De Smet — Herbert also turned to artists such as Oscar and Floris Jespers, as well as Hippolyte Daye. In his eyes, they embodied the vital and authentic force of Flemish art, which had for too long been dominated by post-Impressionism and its alignment with international artistic trends. Deeply Catholic and committed to the Flemish movement, Herbert saw in these artists a continuation of his political and cultural convictions. After the Second World War, with his friends the gallerist Robert Delevoy, the collector Gustave Van Geluwe, and Emile Langui, Director of Fine Arts in the Belgian Administration, Tony Herbert became involved in La Jeune Peinture Belge and expanded his collection to embrace artists such as Jan Burssens, Pierre Caille, Louis Van Lint, Anne Bonnet, and Willy Anthoons. Herbert was then closely connected to a network of major Belgian collectors, including Philippe Dotremont, Bertie Urvater, Fernand Graindorge, and Gustave Van Geluwe, who all lent their works to significant museum exhibitions both in Belgium and abroad — at a time when official institutions acquired very little contemporary art. Entirely devoted to his artists, Herbert frequently organized major tributes to them at Het Sporenhof, each gathering more than 400 figures of the Belgian cultural, financial, and political elite. De Smet, Tytgat, and Brusselmans were thus celebrated, surrounded by their works and accompanied by readings from leading art critics of the time. Each celebration concluded with a banquet and dancing, and these legendary evenings left a lasting impression on all who attended. Tony Herbert died unexpectedly in October 1959 at the age of 57. His collection continued to be exhibited in major retrospectives in Belgium and the Nether­lands. In 1985, the municipal council of the City of Bruges decided to acquire fifteen key artworks from the collection, a group later complemented in 2010 by the acquisition of six additional paintings of the same provenance. The remainder was distributed among Tony Herbert’s numerous children. The ensemble presented here comes directly from the collector’s descendants and includes major works by Tytgat, Wouters, Brusselmans, and De Smet, which have remained within the family for decades.

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