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Charlier, Guillaume(-Joseph)
(b Ixelles, Brussels, 2 Aug 1854; d St-Josst-ten-Node, Brussels, 15 Feb 1925). Belgian sculptor. He was an apprentice modeller until he was 15, when his father died, and he then took a job as assistant to the sculptors Guillaume Geefs and Joseph Geefs (1808–85). He left to become assistant to Eugène Simonis, who permitted him at the end of the day to use the studio for his own sculptural work. He also attended evening classes at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. After selling the figure group The Deluge (Tournai, Mus. B.-A.) he had enough money to travel to Paris. From 1880 to 1882 he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Pierre-Jules Cavelier and then, returning to Brussels, he attended the studio of Charles Van der Stappen. In Paris in 1882 he won the Prix de Rome for sculpture and, travelling to Italy in 1883, spent some time in Florence. He found the country disappointing, however, and obtained leave from the French government to return to Paris. In 1885 he made his début at the Salon and in 1892 was made a member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Many of Charlier’s sculptures are melancholy in character and reveal a marked sympathy with the lot of workers and the oppressed, as in The Prayer (1887; Brussels, Mus. A. Mod.) and Maternal Anxiety (1888; Barcelona, Mus. A. Mod.). In addition to Salon works he produced a number of public sculptures that include The Woodcutter and The Oak (both 1896), which were installed in the Jardin Botanique in Brussels. He also carried out portrait busts and monuments, among them one dedicated to the painter Louis Gallait, erected in Tournai in 1891. In 1901 he won a competition to design a monument, which he worked on with Victor Horta, to the politician and jurist Jules Bara in Tournai, his birthplace. Charlier spent much of 1894 at St-Josst-ten-Node, where his lifelong friend the collector Henri Van Cutsem lived. On Van Cutsem’s death in 1904 Charlier was bequeathed his house and its contents. He donated the Van Cutsem collection to the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tournai, and after Charlier’s death the house became the Musée de l’Hôtel Charlier.
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