Carlo (or Carl and Karel) de Roover (1900 - 1986), born in Boom (Antwerp), was a painter of landscapes, still lifes, nudes, figures and portraits. Early in his career, he painted bucolic figures and nudes. He was influenced by New Objectivity (a movement that was a stylistic reaction within the arts to the Expressionism that had preceded it), between 1920 and 1924 by Cubism and from 1924 by Constructivism. From the 1930s, he painted many sunny landscapes. During World War II, his work was inspired by the verist and poetic spirit, a style that combined photographic realism with hallucinatory or ironic images. In 1960, his way of working evolved towards geometric abstraction (c. 1965). In 1966 he experimented a lot: he painted the surface of roller shutters and weathered wood, for example.

Carlo de Roover's first teacher (during World War I) in the Netherlands was his brother, Albert de Roover (1892 - 1978). He continued his artistic training at the Antwerp Academy and the ‘NHISKA’ (National Higher Institute of Fine Arts Antwerp; 1919-1923). He won several prizes: the N. De Keyser Prize in 1921, the Van Lerius Prize in 1922 and the Prix de Rome in 1928.  In 1929, he was appointed a teacher at the Antwerp Academy. His first personal exhibition took place at the Arenberg Theatre in Antwerp in (1927). Further retrospectives followed at the Antwerp Academy in 1966, at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1957, at the Museum in Sint-Niklaas in 1974, at the Arts Centre P.A.C  in Vaalbeek in 1976 and again at the Antwerp Academy in 1982.