Died 13 March 1949, Antwerp, Belgium | ||
Leon Brunin (20 November 1861 – 13 March 1949), also known as Léon de Meuter, was a Belgian painter.
Brunin was born in Antwerp, where he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. He first attended classes with the sculptor Frans Joris, then painters Polydore Beaufaux and Charles Verlat. In 1883, Leon became one of founders of the art circle als ik kan ("if I can") and participated in a number of expositions. From 1886 he was friends with Dutch artists Matthijs Maris, Jacob Maris, Hendrik-Willem Mesdag, Alma Tadema and the Italian painter Giovanni Segantini. In 1886 and 1887 he lived in the Borinage, a coalmining area in the south of Belgium where the working and living conditions of the miners were appalling. Here he witnessed the great strike and its bloody suppression.