Joseph Geefs

Joseph Geefs

Joseph Germain or Jozef Geefs (23 December 1808 – 9 October 1885) was a Belgian sculptor. His brothers Guillaume Geefs and Jean Geefs were also sculptors.

Life

He was born in Antwerp, where he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, going on to Paris's École des beaux-arts and winning the Prix de Rome in 1836. In 1841 he became a lecturer in sculpture and anatomy at the Academy in Antwerp (his pupils included Bart van Hove and Jef Lambeaux), rising to be its director in 1876. He was made an officer of the Order of Leopold in 1859.

Geefs married a daughter of the architect Lodewijk Roelandt and probably produced the portrait medallion on his gravestone.^[1] Geefs was buried in Berchem.^[2] He died in Brussels, aged 76.

Selected works

Statue of Van Hogendorp by Josef Geefs (1867)

Belgium

Antwerp

• Indian rider attacked by two jaguars (1869) and Hunter with booty, in Antwerp Zoo
• Equestrian statue of Leopold I of Belgium (1872)

Brussels

• The Genius of Evil, Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten

Mechelen

• Stations of the cross (1867) and images (1867–1871) in Saints Peter and Paul Church^[3]

Netherlands

Heiligerlee

• Monument to Adolf van Nassau (1873), to a design by Johannes Hinderikus Egenberger

Rotterdam

• Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp (1867), Coolsingel

Tilburg

• Portrait medallion of William II of the Netherlands on an obelisk (1874)^[4]

References

1. "RoelandtLouis" (in Dutch).
2. "Geefs" (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 9 December 2007.
3. "Parish website of Sts Peter and Paul" (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 19 July 2011.
4. "Obelisk to King William II" (in Dutch).

External links

• Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie