The painting studio
A special place in the museum, where time stood still, is the painting studio on the first floor. As a visitor, you had the impression that Permeke might come in at any moment to resume painting: on the wooden worktable, under the glass roof, there are dried-out paint tubes, brushes of all sizes and rags waiting for the master to pick them up again. All these items were carefully packed up one by one.
A lot of major works hung in the painting studio: Over Permeke, Het zelfportret, de zaaier…The way in which they left their safe home was quite extraordinary …
Did you know that….
In the painting studio there is a “painting slot”, a groove in the wooden floor that can be opened and through which Permeke could lower his paintings because only smaller works could go down the stairs. This slot is still useable to this day, to the great satisfaction of the technical staff: with the help of a pulley, the shipping crates and travel frames were lifted up through the groove, one by one, after which the paintings and drawings - carefully packed in the crates - were taken back down through the groove. All the works were safely loaded into a lorry specifically equipped for transporting artwork.
