The noted Belgian art and literary critic Henry Dommartin (sometimes spelled Henri) met Dewis at the 1917 exhibition and became a fervent admirer of his fellow countryman's work. He once served as the State Librarian at Brussels and had heroically engineered the rescue of truckloads of Belgian art treasures from what was almost certain destruction shortly after the Germans occupied Belgium in 1914. Dommartin was the first and most insistent among Dewis's circle of friends to argue that the artist should concentrate solely on his art.