DE WEVER EN DE BREISTER

DE WEVER EN DE BREISTER (WERNER HEYNDRICKX)

In a flowerbed near the city library are two modestly-sized bronze statues. They refer to the former working class of Sint-Niklaas, a city in which the textile industry flourished from the 19th until well into the 20th century. Almost all the knitwear factories and weaving mills have now left the city.

The sculptures "The Wever and the Breister" (THE WEAVER AND THE KNITTER) are reminders of this bygone industrial era, which held not only glory but also misery. These working people are not portrayed heroically as they are in social realism. They are simple, closed in form and somewhat introverted. They bear their daily cares without resistance. They are grand in their modesty.

The stylized design refers to expressionism. Werner Heyndrickx comes from a family of stone cutters and thus is an excellent craftsman. One of his notable statements is that a good sculpture should be able to roll down a mountain without a piece breaking off. A sculpture should be comparable to a menhir or a dolmen because of its compactness.

The artist is known as a skilled portraitist. In his youth, he was an ardent supporter of expressionism. He regularly returned to that childhood love during his career. The "Weaver and the knitter" are the last works he realizes commissioned by the city administration.

HEYNDRICKX Werner (1909-1986)

Werner Heyndrickx is a realistic sculptor of portraits and figures. His father, Jozef Heyndrickx, was a stonecutter. Educated at the academies of Sint-Niklaas and Antwerp and at the National Institute of Fine Arts in Antwerp (studio E. Wijnants). Teacher of sculpture at the Municipal Academy of Fine Arts in Sint-Niklaas and the Higher Institute in Antwerp (1965).

Werner Heyndrickx' studio was located near the cemetery of Tereken.  For the bronze casting, he called on a regular bronze caster, Achiel Vindevogel, in Zwijnaarde.  He also attached great importance to the patina of a sculpture.

Particularly in Werner Heyndrickx's early works one can still clearly sense the influence of his teachers Dupont (painterly modelling) and certainly Ernest Wijnants (the feeling for sculpture) in a reduction of the sculpture to a number of rigidly stylised planes, formed by long vertical folds.  This rather synthesizing style can be recognized in the austere apostle statues Werner Heyndrickx made for the Christus Koningkerk in Sint-Niklaas.  Although the heads, hands and feet are worked out with precision and detail, the vertical folds are stylized planes.  In the sculptures “Contemplation” and “Family,” this stylization is also evident.

Striking features of Heyndrickx' work are the somewhat cool detachment of his sculpted figures, but above all his keen perception and the accurate likenesses of his portraits.

He took part in many exhibitions in Belgium and abroad in Antwerp, Ghent, Liège, Namur, Paris, Prague and Bratislava. Prizes : the 'Godecharle Prize', the 'Van Lerius Prize', the 'Doutrolonde de Try Prize' and the 'Prize of the Province of East Flanders for Sculpture'.

Kunst In De Stad Vzw is 'showing' some 15 works by this sculptor.

1980