Bram van Velde

Bram Van Velde was born October 19, 1895 in Zoeterwoude, not far from Leyde. Self-taught, he was at a very early age attracted to painting, and at twelve years old he began an apprenticeship at Schayk & Kramers’ design studio in La Haye. The Kramer family encouraged him in his art, receptive to his talent as both collectors and art amateurs. They would become his patron until 1934.

His career was moving forward, and in February 1927 he headed to Brême to exhibit his works. He was admitted along with his brother Greer to the Salon des Independents in Paris. There he became close to Paul Guillaume and at that time discovered Matisse and the Piano Lesson, an encounter that would be essential for his work. Influenced first by the German Expressionists, in Paris he opened himself to the influence of the Fauves. He worked until he achieved a personal abstraction to which he would hold true. In a series of compositions of fruit beside a window, he abolishes the distance between interior and exterior, between conceived forms and descriptive elements that here enter a system of contours and rings suggesting interwoven surfaces. He distinguishes himself thus from French artists who achieved their abstract style through Impressionism or Cubism.

It was in 1939 that the artist created his own plastic language, with three large gouaches that would found the autonomy of his art. Tried by the terrors of war, Van Velde stopped all pictorial activity fro, 1941 to 1945. After the war, he returned to his art in full control of the plastic language that would characterize the ensemble of his work. The interior tensions within the painter materialized a conception of space that was imminently personal. He liked to introduce fluidity into his work that most often displayed a luminous transparency.

It was not until the 1960’s, when he moved to Geneva, that the artist would come to know a certain notoriety. After 1961, the rhythm of his expositions accelerated. A film by Jean-Michel Maurice is made about his life.

Bram collaborated on the art review TROU, for which he created an original print to illustrate its one hundred copies. Afterwards he painted his last small format works. Bram Van Velde died on December 28, 1981 at Grimaud, near Saint-Tropez. His friend and mentor Jacques Putman, who had supported him after his departure from Maeght and for the rest career, died on February 27, 1994 in Paris, and rests close to the artist.