Leonard Hubert, was born on Valentine’s Day, 1851, the son of Petrus (Pierre) Spilliaert (1824-1884), a plumber-tinsmith and lighthouse keeper, and Henriette Deswaef (1820-1891).1 In 1880, he married Léonie Jonckheere and a year later their first son, Léon, was born.
Leonard was a self-employed businessman with a perfumery and hair salon in Kapellestraat, the commercial centre of Ostend, near Wapenplein and the town hall. He sold perfumes with names such as Lipster, Fleurs de Flandre or the famous Brise d’Ostende. The adjacent hair salon also employed Leonard’s brother Octave (1860-1911), who later opened his own hair salon on Wittenonnenstraat.2 Leonard was very attentive and sought to provide a certain variety as far as his business was concerned. During one week in September 1886, for example, potential customers could visit the hair salon to have an appointment with Liège travelling dentist Alphonse Sasserath (the great uncle of author Harry Mulish).3
Léonard, often simply called Léon (like his son) enjoyed a certain fame in Ostend, especially as a perfumer, but also as president of the Katholieke Volksbond. Catholic workers joined forces in this association to oppose the more conservative bourgeoisie and fight for better living conditions.4
A local newspaper article from a 1907 liberal newspaper described father Spilliaert as a ‘good man, a great talker, dedicated, amusing, and full of life’.5 Perhaps a little too full of life: a year earlier, in 1906, the clergy had deemed him too frivolous to be a candidate on the Catholic list and he had to withdraw.6 In March 1906, Leonard received a portrait of himself as a gift to mark his ten-year presidency of the Volksbond of the same age.7
This somewhat eccentric, well-read man and young Léon must have had some lively conversations and debates.8 Evidently Spilliaert’s father had complete faith in him. For example, he once told of a vision in which the German Emperor and his entourage came all the way to Ostend to see Léon's workshop.9 Moreover, Léonard heard people say that his son was a ‘painter with a great future’. He apparently said that if his son had a special talent, he got it from his father.10 Léonard died unexpectedly in April 1928, at the age of 77.
