Pieter De Pannemaeker is an artist of the 1880s. He was a prolific printmaker and watercolor artist who was very active in the 19th century – he was active in Ghent, Belgium and was counted among the best artists of his time. He specialized in landscapes and botanicals and contributed to many publications and periodicals at a time when Belgium was the leading center for botanical publishing. De Pannemaeker’s credits include chromolithographs and art for Linden Jules Jean’s publications L’Illustration Horticole and Lindenia. Most of the plants depicted in one of his publications titled "Flore des Serres" were availed for sale at the van Houtte's nursery. This made the journal double as a catalogue. His art brings to life the fundamental quest to express something emotive, subjective and personal, in an abstract, poetic way. His art work brings together inherent compositions while at the same time revealing his remarkable powers of observation.
His art has, especially, been noted for their bold coloration, compositional rhythms, and sweeping brushstrokes which are gestural in nature. His family was actually composed of tapestry weavers from the Southern Netherlands, an equivalent to contemporary Belgium. Working from Brussels, de Pannemaeker was a celebrated weaver who created tapestries for European royalty. The tapestries were resplendent with silver and gold threads, and woolen items and expensive fine silks. Through his art, future, present and past play out in front of her viewers’ eyes. In 1520, he commissioned the artist Bernard to make tapestry cartoons for his workshop. One art critic said that De Pannemaeker’s subject matter never feels expunged from nature, but rather thought of in and expressed as art.
