Gustave (Gust) De Smet (Ghent °1877 - Deurle °1943) was one of the central figures of Flemish Expressionism. The son of a painter, he was educated in Ghent together with his brother, fellow artist Léon De Smet. Initially an impressionist and part of the second group of the School of Latem, De Smet's style evolved greatly after 1914 when he and his family fled to the Netherlands at the outbreak of the First World War. There, he was introduced to and adopted expressionism. In 1922, the De Smet family moved back to Belgium. After a brief stay with fellow Latem School pupils Constant Permeke and Frits Van den Berghe in Ostend, De Smet helped shape the Sélection movement and once again moved to the Latem area where he spent the rest of his life. He succumbed to tuberculosis in 1943.