Bram van Velde

Biography

First years

His/her mother, Catharina von der Voorst (1867 - 1949) is the illegitimate girl of a Count; his/her father, Willem van Velde (1868 - 1914), has a small company of River transport on the the Rhine. Bram is the second child (his/her Cornelia sister is born in 1892, Geer, who will be also painter, and Jacoba in 1898 and 1903). In bankruptcy and after serious difficulties, the father gives up to them his. Its family, which will have several residences, with Leyde, Lisse, then $the Hague, knows a terrible misery which will mark Bram deeply. Some happinesses are related to painting: at the five years age, the child receives his first box of pencils.

Beginnings in painting

Entered in 1907 like apprentice the firm of painting and interior decoration Schaijk & Kramers , in $the Hague, it is encouraged in its art by Eduard H. Kramers and its Wijnand son, collectors and amateurs sensitive to his talent. Those will be regularly its patrons until worms 1934. Bram is reformed as a bread-winner for the beginning of the First World War. It continues its work of decorator and house painter, and is registered with the Mauritshuis $the Hague to copy the old Masters there.

In 1922, Kramers encourages van Velde to travel, to perhaps improve and pays a small revenue to him. This one goes to Munich (May), then is fixed at the north of Bremen, in Worpswede (June), where since the Années 1890 exists a colony of artists expressionnists: this short stay (hardly more than 3 months) will determine at van Velde its passage to modernity. It however rather quickly leaves Worpswede to settle with Paris, in the district of Bellevue. Its career takes off, and in February 1927 it goes to Bremen to expose its works to it. It connects in April on the Kunstschau Jury-Freie of Berlin, and is admitted, like his Geer brother, with the Salon of Independent the, in Paris, where they will expose several times (1928 with 1932, in 1940 and 1941). It goes to Chartres in company of Otto Freundlich, and discovers Matisse at that time, probably at Paul Guillaume. Essential meeting for its work, just like, during the years to come, that of Picasso.

The October 6th 1928, van Velde marries Lilly (Sophie Caroline) Klöker (1896 - 1936), painter German which he probably attended since Worpswede. After the crisis of 1929, the living conditions harden for the couple, which decides to settle in Spain. In September 1932, they are with Majorque. The Spanish Civil war bursts in 1936, Lilly dies in the hospital and van Velde is repatriated on a warship to Marseilles, with some fabrics. It joined Paris and settles at Geer, then meets Marthe Arnaud, old missionary Lutheran with the Zambezi, which will become his/her partner. Via this one, it meets Samuel Beckett, which will become his/her friend. Challenged in 1938 in the street whereas he spoke German with Marthe, he is briefly imprisoned because its papers are not in rule. Van Velde will make some other stays in prison in the years which will follow.

It is in 1939 that the artist creates his own plastic language, with the first of three large gouaches which will found the autonomy of its Article It stops painting in 1941 (it does not have “any more the force to continue (its) work”, according to what it will write towards 1945 with a Dutch collector), to begin again only towards the Automne 1945. Its first personal exposure opens the March 21st 1946 in Paris with the Gallery May of Marcel Michaud with 25 paintings, the near total of its work. It is a failure. First text of Beckett on van Velde in Books of art of Zervos . In 1947, it signs a contract with the Gallery Maeght of Paris, and in 1948 exposes at Kootz to New York - a new commercial failure, in spite of a good criticism of Willem de Kooning. After a new absence of purchasers at Maeght, it stops painting during one year, then Maeght breaks its contract in 1952 after still a new failure, while preserving its stock of works. In 1958, Franz Meyer organizes the first exposure of museum of Bram van Velde, its retrospective in Kunsthalle of Bern. The Bram-Marthe couple leaves Paris this same year, but Marthe precisely dies the following year (August 11th), reversed by a car at the time of a passage to Paris. Bram makes knowledge with Christmas 1959 of Madeleine, with Geneva, which will be his/her new partner.

Late recognition

As of 1961, the rate/rhythm of the exposures accelerates, its standard of living feels some. A first film of Jean-Michel Meurice is made on its life. Van Velde oscillates between Paris and Geneva, where it starts to paint before settling there in 1967. The France names it knight of the Ordre of Arts and of the Letters in 1964, the Holland decrees the Order of to him Orange-Nassau in 1969. In 1973, it paints with Vault-on Carouge some large gouaches which are like a last “wild” deployment of the color in its work. Aimé Maeght then includes it in his gallery, nearly twenty years after having congédié it. In 1975, it is with the turn of the academic companies of the Humanities of Lausanne, Geneva and Neuchâtel to give to him to Rolle the Price of the Humanities, and in 1980 it is made knight about the Icelandic Falcon. Its eightieth birthday is accompanied, him, of a collective homage (Fata Morgana, Montpellier).

Bram collaborates in the beginning 1981 with the review of art HOLE (NR. 2), for which it creates an original print to illustrate the first 100 impressions. One finds in the same number of creations of Charles Juliet, Fred-Andre Holzer, Michel Butor, Alexandre Voisard and Nello Finotti.

Bram van Velde dies the December 28th 1981 with Grimaud, close to Saint-Tropez and is buried with Arles. Its mentor and friendly Jacques Putman, which will have supported it since its departure from Maeght and during the remainder of its career, dies the February 27th 1994 in Paris; he rests near him.

Source

To groove Michael Mason, Bram van Velde 1895-1981; Retrospective of the Centenary, catalogs exposure, with fifteen contributions of various authors , Geneva 1996, Musée Rath (Museum of art and history), pp. 305-307.

Exposures

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