Maurice LANGASKENS

During his period of internment as a prisoner of war, Maurice Langaskens was able to continue working as an artist, and made numerous studies of his fellow prisoners and of camp life. Among the activities sanctioned by the Germans were musical and theatrical performances by the prisoners. The present sheet depicts a soldier-prisoner playing a role in one such theatrical production; a humorous play entitled, in Flemish, In de war (Confused) and performed at the Münsterlager camp on December 11th, 1915. Langaskens painted watercolour portraits of several other actors and performers in camp productions, which remained together as a group until their eventual dispersal at auction in Belgium in 2019. Another watercolour by Langaskens of a performer from the same production is in the collection of the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres.

By far the largest and most comprehensive collection of works on paper by Langaskens – numbering over five hundred drawings, watercolours and prints, mainly dating from his time as a prisoner of war but also including works from throughout his career – is today in the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres. Other drawings by the artist are in the collections of the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History in Brussels, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Historial de la Grande Guerre in Péronne and the Commune de Schaerbeek, as well as in several private collections.