Bram van Velde was a Dutch painter. On his expressionist and surrealist artworks made in Tachisme and Lyrical Abstraction, the artist depicted brightly various geometric forms.
Background
Bram van Velde was born as Abraham Gerardus van Velde on October 19, 1895, in Zoeterwoude, South-Holland, Netherlands. He was the second of four children in the family of Willem Adriaan van Velde, a small businessman owner of the little company in water transportation on the Rhine, and Hendrika Catharina von der Voorst, illegitimate daughter of a Count.
Velde’s father left the family after financial problems with his company. Velde’s mother with four children moved to the Hague where they lived in an extreme poverty.
Education
Bram van Velde completed his artistic training at the interior decorating company of Schaijk & Kramers in the Hague which apprentice he became in 1907.
Van Velde sharpened his painting skills by copying the artworks of Dutch great masters at the Mauritshuis museum in the Hague.
Career
Since 1922, Bram van Velde travelled around the world due to the stipend from the co-owners of the Schaijk & Kramers company where he was an apprentice. The young artist visited such German cities as Munich, Worpswede where he explored the modern art, and finally, Paris.
The first exhibition at which van Velde demonstrated his artworks to the public was organized on February 1927 in Bremen. The same year, in April, the painter took part at the Jury-Freie Kunstschau in Berlin. After, van Velde was admitted to the Salon des Indépendants where he exhibited a number of times along with his brother Geer, in particular, in 1928, 1932, and in 1940-1941.
At the beginning of the 1930s, the painter produced a series of somehow abstract still-lives inspired by the art of Henri Matisse he had discovered while his stint in Paris. In 1936, van Velde got acquainted with a writer from Ireland Samuel Beckett who became his friend for life.
During the World War II, the painter abandoned his painting activity and worked secretly for the French resistance. He was supported by Beckett.
After the war conflict, the artist recommenced his art and had his first solo show on March 21, 1946, in Paris at the Mai Gallery where he presented about 25 of his existed paintings. The presentation had no success as well as the debut New York exhibition at the Samuel Kootz Gallery in 1948 accompanied by an essay from Samuel Beckett.
In 1947, van Velde had a contract with the Galerie Maeght in Paris which had lasted for five years. The artist had a foremost pause of his painting career.
The first museum retrospective of van Velde’s creations was held by Franz Meyer in 1958 at the Kunsthalle of Bern. The painter began his experiments with lithography.
At the beginning of the 1960s, the artist received the first critical acclaim and was featured in a documentary by Jean-Michel Meurice. At this time, van Velde befriended some of the CoBrA members, among whom were Pierre Alechinsky and Asger Jorn. The artist moved to Geneva, and since 1967 he lived almost all of the time in Switzerland.
Among the significant exhibitions of the 1960s were the shows in the United States held by Knoedler gallery in 1962, 1964 and 1968. Van Velde had also some shows in Poland, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Brussels, Copenhagen, Rome and Amsterdam.
In 1975, Bram van Velde exhibited his art at the Galerie Maeght in Paris after a twenty-year break.
Bram van Velde is regarded as one of the most notable painters of the post-war period. His talented artistic mind, as well as his achievements in this field, were marked by such prestigious awards as the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Order of Orange-Nassau and the Icelandic Order of the Falcon.
In honour of his 80th birthday, Fata Morgana press published a collection of his works.
The fame did not stop to increase after the artist’s death. So, a retrospective of van Velde’s art took place at the Lefebre Gallery of New York City in 1982. This one was followed by a huge exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris three years later. Despite, canvases by Bram van Velde were demonstrated in the galleries of the Netherlands, Switzerland and Spain.
Quotations:
"Life and mind are continuously in conflict with each other. I want happiness, security. I won’t reach that by considerations of my mind; on the contrary they will lead to a certain despair of the inner person. Not what he thinks engages the artist, but what he feels."
"Art is not for the personal satisfaction of one or the other, but art wants to return all what’s in life... Art wants to give back everything what’s in our lives. The more comprehensive the artist stands in life the more powerful his work will speak, and therefore a work of art is a measure of the mental size of his creator."
"Creating a painting is a matter of ensuring that all its parts achieve unity."
"Paris with its multitude of art directions calls continuously to the deepest penetration and recognition of your inner essence. Only in this way it is possible to create work that refers the time span."
"My work is independent of my will. My best works are created when driven by an inner strength. This has nothing to do with my will. It is that immediate spontaneity of my intense way of living that makes the difference between my work and a lot of other artists who make artworks with their mind."
"When I am painting, driven by lively tensions, I want to express what’s going on in me. When that tension has ceased, when the life in me became visible, then something happened which had to happen. Over and over again you experience a work which is created in this way. What happened? It is hard to say, because it was not my mind that led but the inner desire that revealed its inner life."
Membership
Artists Rights Society
,
United States
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
"Bram van Velde could have been made for Beckett. He could, come to think of it, have been made by Beckett, not only in the sense that he has the characteristics of the typical Beckettian character, but in that it was as much thanks to Beckett’s private and public support as to his own talent that he was able to lift himself out of the extreme poverty which he had suffered for much of his life." Nicholas Lezard, an English journalist and literary critic
Connections
Bram van Velde married Lilly (Sophie Caroline) Klöker, a German painter, October 6, 1928. They had lived together till Lilly’s death in 1936.
Later, in Paris, the artist got acquainted with a Lutheran missionary, Marthe Arnaud, who became his life partner. Marthe died in 1959 after a car hit.
The last companion of the artist became a woman named Madeleine who he met on Christmas 1959.
