The Life and Artistic Evolution of Bram van Velde
Born in Zoeterwoude, near Leiden, Bram van Velde was the second of four children in an intensely poor family. Following the bankruptcy of his father, his family moved between Leyden, Lisse, and The Hague. As a young man, he entered service as an apprentice in a painting and interior decorating company in The Hague, where he was encouraged by the co-owners Eduard H. Kramers and Wijnand. Because he was the bread-winner for his family, he was exempted from service in the First World War. During this time, he worked as a painter and decorator and enrolled in the Mauritshuis of The Hague to copy masterworks.
In 1922, encouraged by the Kramers, van Velde traveled to Munich and then to Worpswede, Germany, where he was exposed to a colony of expressionist artists. He subsequently moved to Paris, eventually exhibiting in the Salon des Indépendants between 1928 and 1941. His life included a period in Mallorca, Spain, where he created a series of still-lives, and a brief incarceration in 1938. He was married to the German painter Lilly Klöker until her death in 1936.
Artistic Style and Recognition
Bram van Velde was a Dutch painter known for an intensely colored and geometric semi-representational painting style related to Tachisme and Lyrical Abstraction. His work resides between expressionism and surrealism, evolving into expressive abstract art in the 1960s. His paintings from the 1950s were noted for their similarity to the contemporary work of Matisse and Picasso. He was championed by writers such as Samuel Beckett and the poet André du Bouchet.
Throughout his career, van Velde experienced various stages of critical and commercial reception:
He died in Grimaud, near Arles, and is buried there.
