The artist Gustave Van de Woestyne has been connected to the Ghent museum for decades. After the turn of the century, a lot of attention was paid to his graphic oeuvre. Not only were preparatory drawings for the writer Stijn Streuvels' adaptation of the medieval epic Van den vos Reynaerde purchased, but also the probably most well-known portrait Gustave made of his brother, the poet-writer-critic Karel van de Woestijne (1910).
Thanks to the donations of the past few years, the museum is able to show more of the artist’s oeuvre and even illustrate the first phase of his career. Only recently, the museum acquired possession of the earliest known self-portrait of Van de Woestyne, which he made in 1899-1900, when he was still studying (or had just left) the Ghent Academy of Fine Arts.