Lucy McKenzie revived a 132-year-old Brussels art school
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- The École Van der Kelen-Logelain is a 132-year-old Brussels painting school (founded 1892) that teaches trompe l'oeil, requiring students to wear white lab coats, work in silence, and tolerate a chilly studio heated only by an antique wood stove nicknamed "la mama."
- Enrollment collapsed from a peak of more than 100 students in the interwar period to just 10-11 by the mid-2000s as trompe l'oeil fell out of fashion in interiors and high art; all of the school's competitors have since closed.
- Lucy McKenzie, a Glaswegian artist who discovered the school in a 2007 secondhand bookshop, is credited with its revival through large-scale trompe l'oeil paintings exhibited at Tate Britain, Stedelijk, and the Art Institute of Chicago, and a book about her time there.
- Sylvie Van der Kelen, 52, has taken over running the school this year from her mother Denise, 82, who led it since 1995 and still drifts in to dispense advice as "Madame" — dubbed the "Coco Chanel of fake marble."
- The course's grueling schedule runs 9am-6pm five days a week plus half-day Saturday, with students juggling multiple "panels" (each requiring drying time between stages) and homework often lasting until midnight; one student reported "roughly one breakdown every week."
- Trompe l'oeil has swung between prestige and dismissal for centuries — praised by ancient Greeks and Renaissance painters, called "trickery" by John Ruskin in 1843, and recently revived by Loewe, Louis Vuitton, and Acne Studios; Sylvie predicts a 40-year demand cycle and says the school is now in another upswing.
- Tuition stands at €13,750 for the six-month course, including tools and materials.
Why it matters: The school's collapse from 100+ students to 10-11 by the mid-2000s — and its reversal after Lucy McKenzie's 2007 enrollment — shows how vanishing decorative crafts can hinge on a single champion. With trompe l'oeil now embraced by major museums and luxury houses (Loewe, Louis Vuitton, Acne Studios), Sylvie's 40-year-cycle theory points to another peak, making the Van der Kelen uniquely positioned as the genre's last living schoolhouse.
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