Bram van Velde
Encyclopedia
Bram van Velde (October 19, 1895, in Zoeterwoude
, near Leyden, Netherlands
- December 28, 1981 in Grimaud
, near Arles
, France
) was a Dutch painter known for an intensely colored and geometric semi-representational painting style related to Tachisme
, and Lyrical Abstraction
. He is often seen as member of the School of Paris
but his work resides somewhere between expressionism
and surrealism
, and evolved in the 1960s into an expressive abstract art. His paintings from the 1950s are similar to the contemporary work of Matisse, Picasso and the abstract expressionist Adolph Gottlieb
. He was championed by a number of French-speaking writers, including Samuel Beckett
and the poet André du Bouchet
.
and Jacoba
were born in 1898 and 1903). After going bankrupt, the father abandoned the family; the mother and children moved repeatedly over the next years, from Leyden to Lisse, and finally to he
in May, then to north of Bremen
(in Worpswede
) in June, where, since the 1890s, there existed a colony of expressionist
artists. This brief exposure to contemporary art (3 months) revolutionized van Velde's work. He left Worpswede shortly after, and moved to Paris
(in the "Belleville" quartier, XIXe arrondissement
). His career progressed slowly, and in February 1927 he exposed his works in Bremen. This was followed by the Jury-Freie Kunstschau of Berlin
in April. Finally, he (with his brother Geer
) was admitted into the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, where he would show his works several times (1928 to 1932, in 1940 and 1941). In this period he went to Chartres
in the company of Otto Freundlich
, and also discovered the works of Henri Matisse
(probably at the home of Paul Guillaume
). Matisse would have a great impact on van Velde's work (as too, in coming years, van Velde's discovery of Pablo Picasso
).
On October 6, 1928, van Velde married the German painter Lilly (Sophie Caroline) Klöker (1896-1936), that he had been seeing since perhaps his stay at Worpswede. With the Great Depression, their material conditions deteriorated and they moved to Spain, and in September 1932 they were living in Majorca. It is here that van Velde used the early painting of Matisse as his inspiration and he made a series of stil-lives in which his later abstraction started to show itself. When the Spanish Civil War
started in 1936, Lilly van Velde died in a hosptial and Bram van Velde fled back to Marseille
with several of his canvases made on Majorca. He came back to Paris and moved in with his brother Geer. He met Marthe Arnaud, a former Lutheran missionary in the Zambezi
, and they became a couple. On the studio of his brother Geer van Velde - also becoming an abstract painter - Bram van Velde met the writer Samuel Beckett
, and the two would develop a friendship. Stopped on the street by the police in 1938 because he was speaking German with Marthe, van Velde was briefly imprisoned (his papers were not in order), and brief incarcerations would occur several times in the coming years.
his canvases made on Majorca. He came back to Paris and moved in with his brother Geer. He met Marthe Arnaud, a former Lutheran missionary in the Zambezi
, and they became a couple. On the studio of his brother Geer van Velde - also his canvases made on Majorca. He came back to Paris and moved in with his brother Geer. He met Marthe Arnaud, a former Lutheran missionary in the Zambezi
, and they became a couple. On the studio of his brother Geer van Velde - also his canvases made on Majorca. He came back to Paris and moved in with his brother Geer. He met Marthe Arnaud, a former Lutheran missionary in the Zambezi
, and they became a couple. On the studio of his brother Geer van Velde - also his canvases made on Majorca. He came back to Paris and moved in with his brother Geer. He met Marthe Arnaud, a former Lutheran missionary in the Zambezi
, and they became a couple. On the studio of his brother Geer van Velde - also his canvases made on Majorca. He came back to Paris and moved in with his brother Geer. He met Marthe Arnaud, a former Lutheran missionary in the Zambezi
, and they became a couple. On the studio of his brother Geer van Velde - also
. He stopped painting in 1941, but began again in the fall of 1945. His first solo exhibition opened March 21, 1946 in Paris in the "Galerie Mai" with 25 canvases, nearly all of his existing works, but the show was a failure. Beckett wrote his first essay on his work in les Cahiers d'art
de Zervos. In 1947, van Velde signed a contract with the Galerie Maeght
in Paris, and in 1948 he showed his work in the Kootz gallery in New York
, but this was also a commercial failure, despite a good review by Willem de Kooning
. After one more commercial disaster at Maeght, van Velde stopped painting for a year. In 1952, Maeght canceled their contract with him, while retaining his works.
In 1958, Franz Meyer organized the first museum exposition of Bram van Velde, a retrospective at the Kunsthalle of Bern. The couple Bram-Marthe left Paris the same year, but Marthe died the following year (August 11), having been hit by a car during a brief trip to Paris. On Christmas 1959, Bram van Velde met Madeleine in Geneva
, and the two became a couple.
Starting in 1961, van Velde began to achieve a certain critical success. Jean-Michel Meurice made a documentary film about the artist. Also younger expressive painters as Pierre Alechinsky
and the Danish Cobra-painter Asger Jorn
admired Van Velde's art and his privat vue on art very strongly; they met him frequently and let their own art be influenced by his expressive art. Van Velde shuttled between Paris and Geneva, and in 1967 he moved to the latter. When the relation with Madeleine broke he returned to the Bourgogne where he lived and worked in a very sober little house. In 1957 Van Velde makes his first lithografy, and with the help of Jaques Putman from then he starts to make long series of lithografies in the next years.
In 1962, 1964 and 1968 Van velde had exhibitions in the United States organized by gallery Knoedler. In 1968 the art critic can appreciate him as 'an important abstractexpressionist painter with an independent vision'. In 1962 he visits Willem de Kooning - also of Dutch origins - but the contact between the two artists is not very satisfying for either side. After 1970, van Velde travels a lot to visit his own expositions in Poland, Iceland, Italy and Norway, Brussels, Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Rome. He doesn't make much new work during this period. In 1964, he was named "chevalier" of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
, and the Netherlands awarded him the Order of Orange-Nassau in 1969. In 1973, he painted at La Chapelle-sur-Carouge
several large gouaches which are seen as the last "savage" appearance of colour in his work. Aimé Maeght took him back in his gallery, almost 20 years after having dropped him. In 1975, he was received by universities in Lausanne
, Geneva and Neuchâtel, and in 1980 he was made chevalier of the "Order of the Falcon" in Iceland
. For his 80th birthday, a collective homage was published by the presses at Fata Morgana (Montpellier
).
Bram van Velde died December 28, 1981 in Grimaud (near Arles
), and is buried there. His mentor and friend Jacques Putman, who supported him and his career after Bram's departure from Maeght, is buried beside him (Putman died February 27, 1994 in Paris).
Zoeterwoude
Zoeterwoude is a municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The municipality covers 21.91 km² . It had a population of 8,526 in 2004....
, near Leyden, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
- December 28, 1981 in Grimaud
Grimaud, Var
Grimaud is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.It is located on the French Riviera. The village of Grimaud is a perched village, with historical links to the Grimaldi family. Gibelin de Grimaldi aided William the Good drive the Saracens of...
, near Arles
Arles
Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
) was a Dutch painter known for an intensely colored and geometric semi-representational painting style related to Tachisme
Tachisme
Tachisme is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often considered to be the European equivalent to abstract expressionism...
, and Lyrical Abstraction
Lyrical Abstraction
Lyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
. He is often seen as member of the School of Paris
School of Paris
School of Paris refers to two distinct groups of artists — a group of medieval manuscript illuminators, and a group of non-French artists working in Paris before World War I...
but his work resides somewhere between expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
and surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, and evolved in the 1960s into an expressive abstract art. His paintings from the 1950s are similar to the contemporary work of Matisse, Picasso and the abstract expressionist Adolph Gottlieb
Adolph Gottlieb
Adolph Gottlieb was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and graphic artist.-Biography:Gottlieb was born in New York to Jewish parents. From 1920-1921 he studied at the Art Students League of New York, after which he traveled in France and Germany for a year...
. He was championed by a number of French-speaking writers, including Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
and the poet André du Bouchet
André du Bouchet
André du Bouchet was a French poet.- Biography :Born in Paris, he lived in France until 1941, when his family left occupied Europe for the United States. He studied at Amherst College and then at Harvard University . After teaching for a year, he returned to France...
.
Early life
Bram van Velde was born into an intensely poor family, and this would mark him profoundly for life. His mother, Catharina von der Voorst (1867-1949) was the illegitimate daughter of a Count. His father, Willem van Velde (1868-1914), owned a small company in water transportation on the Rhine. Bram was the second of four children (his sister Cornelia was born in 1892, GeerGeer van Velde
Gerardus van Velde, or Geer van Velde was a Dutch painter.- Early life :Van Velde was the second son of Willem Adriaan van Velde, then owner of a small case of inland waterway transport fuelwood and charcoal on the Rhine and Hendrika Catharina von der Voorst, illegitimate daughter of an earl...
and Jacoba
Jacoba van Velde
Jacoba van Velde was a Dutch writer. Her novel debut "De grote zaal" appeared in 1953 and was within ten years translated into thirteen languages. During her life around 75,000 copies of "De grote zaal" were sold...
were born in 1898 and 1903). After going bankrupt, the father abandoned the family; the mother and children moved repeatedly over the next years, from Leyden to Lisse, and finally to he
Early career
In 1922, the Kramers encouraged van Velde to travel and gave him a monthly stipend. He went first to MunichMunich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
in May, then to north of Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
(in Worpswede
Worpswede
Worpswede is a municipality in the district of Osterholz, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the Teufelsmoor, northeast of Bremen. The small town itself is located near the Weyerberg hill. It has been the home to a lively artistic community since the end of the 19th century, with over 130...
) in June, where, since the 1890s, there existed a colony of expressionist
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
artists. This brief exposure to contemporary art (3 months) revolutionized van Velde's work. He left Worpswede shortly after, and moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
(in the "Belleville" quartier, XIXe arrondissement
XIXe arrondissement
The 19th arrondissement of Paris is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France.Situated on the Right Bank of the River Seine, it is crossed by two canals, the Canal Saint-Denis and the Canal de l'Ourcq, which meet near the Parc de la Villette.The 19th arrondissement includes two...
). His career progressed slowly, and in February 1927 he exposed his works in Bremen. This was followed by the Jury-Freie Kunstschau of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
in April. Finally, he (with his brother Geer
Geer van Velde
Gerardus van Velde, or Geer van Velde was a Dutch painter.- Early life :Van Velde was the second son of Willem Adriaan van Velde, then owner of a small case of inland waterway transport fuelwood and charcoal on the Rhine and Hendrika Catharina von der Voorst, illegitimate daughter of an earl...
) was admitted into the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, where he would show his works several times (1928 to 1932, in 1940 and 1941). In this period he went to Chartres
Chartres
Chartres is a commune and capital of the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France. It is located southwest of Paris.-Geography:Chartres is built on the left bank of the Eure River, on a hill crowned by its famous cathedral, the spires of which are a landmark in the surrounding country...
in the company of Otto Freundlich
Otto Freundlich
Otto Freundlich was a German painter and sculptor of Jewish origin and one of the first generation of abstract artists.-Life:...
, and also discovered the works of Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
(probably at the home of Paul Guillaume
Paul Guillaume
Paul Guillaume was a French art dealer. Dealer of Chaim Soutine and Amedeo Modigliani, he was one of the first to organize African art exhibitions...
). Matisse would have a great impact on van Velde's work (as too, in coming years, van Velde's discovery of Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
).
On October 6, 1928, van Velde married the German painter Lilly (Sophie Caroline) Klöker (1896-1936), that he had been seeing since perhaps his stay at Worpswede. With the Great Depression, their material conditions deteriorated and they moved to Spain, and in September 1932 they were living in Majorca. It is here that van Velde used the early painting of Matisse as his inspiration and he made a series of stil-lives in which his later abstraction started to show itself. When the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
started in 1936, Lilly van Velde died in a hosptial and Bram van Velde fled back to Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
with several of his canvases made on Majorca. He came back to Paris and moved in with his brother Geer. He met Marthe Arnaud, a former Lutheran missionary in the Zambezi
Zambezi
The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. The area of its basin is , slightly less than half that of the Nile...
, and they became a couple. On the studio of his brother Geer van Velde - also becoming an abstract painter - Bram van Velde met the writer Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
, and the two would develop a friendship. Stopped on the street by the police in 1938 because he was speaking German with Marthe, van Velde was briefly imprisoned (his papers were not in order), and brief incarcerations would occur several times in the coming years.
his canvases made on Majorca. He came back to Paris and moved in with his brother Geer. He met Marthe Arnaud, a former Lutheran missionary in the Zambezi
Zambezi
The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. The area of its basin is , slightly less than half that of the Nile...
, and they became a couple. On the studio of his brother Geer van Velde - also his canvases made on Majorca. He came back to Paris and moved in with his brother Geer. He met Marthe Arnaud, a former Lutheran missionary in the Zambezi
Zambezi
The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. The area of its basin is , slightly less than half that of the Nile...
, and they became a couple. On the studio of his brother Geer van Velde - also his canvases made on Majorca. He came back to Paris and moved in with his brother Geer. He met Marthe Arnaud, a former Lutheran missionary in the Zambezi
Zambezi
The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. The area of its basin is , slightly less than half that of the Nile...
, and they became a couple. On the studio of his brother Geer van Velde - also his canvases made on Majorca. He came back to Paris and moved in with his brother Geer. He met Marthe Arnaud, a former Lutheran missionary in the Zambezi
Zambezi
The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. The area of its basin is , slightly less than half that of the Nile...
, and they became a couple. On the studio of his brother Geer van Velde - also his canvases made on Majorca. He came back to Paris and moved in with his brother Geer. He met Marthe Arnaud, a former Lutheran missionary in the Zambezi
Zambezi
The Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. The area of its basin is , slightly less than half that of the Nile...
, and they became a couple. On the studio of his brother Geer van Velde - also
Maturity
In 1939, van Velde came upon his own painting style while working in a large-format with gouacheGouache
Gouache[p], also spelled guache, the name of which derives from the Italian guazzo, water paint, splash or bodycolor is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. A binding agent, usually gum arabic, is also present, just as in watercolor...
. He stopped painting in 1941, but began again in the fall of 1945. His first solo exhibition opened March 21, 1946 in Paris in the "Galerie Mai" with 25 canvases, nearly all of his existing works, but the show was a failure. Beckett wrote his first essay on his work in les Cahiers d'art
Cahiers d'art
Cahiers d'Art was a French artistic and literary magazine founded in 1926 by Christian Zervos. Zervos published it until 1960. Cahiers d'Art has also become an eponymous publishing house which published many monographs on French artists living in France in the first half of the twentieth century...
de Zervos. In 1947, van Velde signed a contract with the Galerie Maeght
Galerie Maeght
The Galerie Maeght is a gallery of modern art, in Cannes and Paris, France, and Barcelona, Spain.The gallery was founded in 1936 in Cannes. The Paris gallery was started in 1946 by Aimé Maeght. The artists exhibited are mainly from France and Spain....
in Paris, and in 1948 he showed his work in the Kootz gallery in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, but this was also a commercial failure, despite a good review by Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
. After one more commercial disaster at Maeght, van Velde stopped painting for a year. In 1952, Maeght canceled their contract with him, while retaining his works.
In 1958, Franz Meyer organized the first museum exposition of Bram van Velde, a retrospective at the Kunsthalle of Bern. The couple Bram-Marthe left Paris the same year, but Marthe died the following year (August 11), having been hit by a car during a brief trip to Paris. On Christmas 1959, Bram van Velde met Madeleine in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, and the two became a couple.
Starting in 1961, van Velde began to achieve a certain critical success. Jean-Michel Meurice made a documentary film about the artist. Also younger expressive painters as Pierre Alechinsky
Pierre Alechinsky
Pierre Alechinsky is a Belgian artist. He has lived and worked in France since 1951. His work is related to Tachisme, Abstract expressionism, and Lyrical Abstraction.Alechinsky was born in Brussels...
and the Danish Cobra-painter Asger Jorn
Asger Jorn
Asger Oluf Jorn was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International...
admired Van Velde's art and his privat vue on art very strongly; they met him frequently and let their own art be influenced by his expressive art. Van Velde shuttled between Paris and Geneva, and in 1967 he moved to the latter. When the relation with Madeleine broke he returned to the Bourgogne where he lived and worked in a very sober little house. In 1957 Van Velde makes his first lithografy, and with the help of Jaques Putman from then he starts to make long series of lithografies in the next years.
In 1962, 1964 and 1968 Van velde had exhibitions in the United States organized by gallery Knoedler. In 1968 the art critic can appreciate him as 'an important abstractexpressionist painter with an independent vision'. In 1962 he visits Willem de Kooning - also of Dutch origins - but the contact between the two artists is not very satisfying for either side. After 1970, van Velde travels a lot to visit his own expositions in Poland, Iceland, Italy and Norway, Brussels, Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Rome. He doesn't make much new work during this period. In 1964, he was named "chevalier" of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
, and the Netherlands awarded him the Order of Orange-Nassau in 1969. In 1973, he painted at La Chapelle-sur-Carouge
Carouge
Carouge is a municipality in the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland, with a population of 19,114 .-History:Carouge is first mentioned in the Early Middle Ages as Quadruvium and Quatruvio. In 1248 it was mentioned as Carrogium while in the 14th Century it was known as Quarrouiz or Quarroggi. In 1445...
several large gouaches which are seen as the last "savage" appearance of colour in his work. Aimé Maeght took him back in his gallery, almost 20 years after having dropped him. In 1975, he was received by universities in Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
, Geneva and Neuchâtel, and in 1980 he was made chevalier of the "Order of the Falcon" in Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
. For his 80th birthday, a collective homage was published by the presses at Fata Morgana (Montpellier
Montpellier
-Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
).
Bram van Velde died December 28, 1981 in Grimaud (near Arles
Arles
Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....
), and is buried there. His mentor and friend Jacques Putman, who supported him and his career after Bram's departure from Maeght, is buried beside him (Putman died February 27, 1994 in Paris).
External links
- See his Works on the Website dedicated to Bram van Velde...http://members.chello.nl/bveck/