The painting ‘De kindervrienden’ (‘The Children’s Friends’) by provocative Flemish artist Dees De Bruyne, which had been missing since 1974, has been rediscovered; according to the Mudel Museum and Knack magazine, it was found in a woman’s attic.
De Bruyne painted ‘The Children’s Friends’ in 1972 as a protest against child abuse.
The artwork depicts influential figures of the time, such as Pope Paul VI, socialist politician Alfons Vranckx, and US President Richard Nixon, with naked children at a festively set table.
It sparked much controversy during an exhibition in Ghent in May 1974, after which it disappeared.
Walter Ertvelt, a writer from Ghent, had been searching for the painting for years, recently joined by Wim Lammertijn, curator of the Mudel Museum in Deinze.
In 2024, a new appeal for information was made, prompted by an exhibition on De Bruyne in Ghent.
Two days after the exhibition, a woman sent an email saying that she knew the whereabouts of ‘The Children's Friends.’ The painting had been in her attic for years before she entrusted it to a confidant.
By the end of last year, they had handed the painting to Ertvelt and Lammertijn.
The Mudel Museum has received the painting on loan and plans to organise an exhibition around it in September.
