Van Mieghem's refugee portraits on show in Antwerp
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Loading... - Justine Geelen
- 20 Apr 2022
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A new exhibition of drawings and paintings of Eugeen Van Mieghem opens in Antwerp on Tuesday. It is the last opportunity to see a number of the works before they are donated to a New York museum in September.
Sitting in his mother’s bar in the port area of Antwerp Van Mieghem drew portraits of numerous East Europeans preparing for their journey to America.
Often these were dishevelled people fleeing poverty and persecution, who had travelled across half a continent to reach Antwerp. A hundred years on history is repeating itself and people are once again on the move fleeing the war in Ukraine.
Many East Europeans had set their hopes on a trip to America aboard Red Star Line ships departing from the Flemish port. Many of the drawings are over a century old but look like they could have been drawn yesterday outside a Ukrainian railway station.
Van Mieghem’s mother ran a bar opposite a Red Star Line hangar where candidate emigrants underwent a first medical.
“Refugees occur in all ages” says Erwin Joos of the Eugeen Van Mieghem Museum. “This was the time of pogroms, the persecution of the Jews in Russia in Chisinau, Odesa and Kyiv. Jews headed for ports like Hamburg and Antwerp and these are the people Van Mieghem drew”. Read More...
