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Born in Liège on 9 September 1909, E. Stroobants was only interested in drawing and music. Around 1923, he entered the workshop of Gustave Paredis (1897-1963) as an apprentice, where he learned to carve wood. At the same time, from 1923 to 1929, he attended evening classes at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. In 1934, Marcel Defize (1906-1978) admitted him to his group of artists L'Atelier de la cour des Minimes. E. Stroobants was the only sculptor in the group. After the war, he participated in the exhibitions of the A.P.I.A.W. (Association for the Intellectual and Artistic Progress of Wallonia). From 1960 to 1966, he was director of the Liège section, then regional director of the Belgian National Discotheque.

If we remember him, it is to evoke the three bas-reliefs of the Arches bridge in Liège executed in 1948, but with which he was not fully satisfied. E. Stroobants is considered to be a portraitist, a bustier, a headhunter, what used to be called “image cutters”. The busts and heads of friends, acquaintances and personalities from Liège are, just like him, little known or not at all.

His sense of observation, his exaggerated sensitivity, his concern for detail and rendering are some of his trademarks. E. Stroobants uses the human face by exploiting “verism” to convey his deep and sensitive emotions. He states that ”The sculptor's aim is to express human greatness, to say the maximum with the minimum.

The exhibition organised by the Liège Cathedral Treasury and the non-profit organisation Art Research Institute presents some sixty sculptures tracing the artist's artistic career. Archival documents, preparatory drawings and casts are on display for the first time. This is the first retrospective exhibition of the artist's work in his lifetime. It is jointly curated by Julien Maquet and Jacques Toussaint.