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Jeroen
Krabbé
For
his tenth exhibition with Francis Kyle Gallery Jeroen Krabbé
assembled a range of works in oil on canvas which introduced a
major new source of inspiration, the islands of New Zealand. The
exhibition's other chief component came from periods spent in
Provence over the past three years, both sequences of paintings
marking significant new developments in Krabbé's approach
to landscape so distinctively balanced between abstraction and
figuration.
Forming
a prelude to the New Zealand works, two paintings from Australia,
a subject already familiar to the artist from time he spent there
in the early 1990s, dramatically demonstrate the new path Jeroen
Krabbé has taken in the intervening years: no figure compositions
now, no hint of man's presence in the natural environment, but
rather two confident landscape statements which with images from
Kata Tjuta and Uluru carry the viewer in a single bold movement
into the searing heart of the continent. The New Zealand paintings
which follow are among the artist's most exuberant, sizzling with
the excitement of first contact. Larger in scale than most of
his paintings from southern Europe, while specific in their individual
subjects, these works go far beyond the topographic to 'distil'
(to borrow Frank Whitford's words) 'from what has been seen, experienced
and then sharply recalled, the concentrated essence of physical
features, atmosphere and mood'. And what he has seen is truly
a new world with extraordinary natural phenomena which sometimes
challenge his chosen means of expression: a hot, volcanic lake,
for instance, is rendered with an explosive fanfare of brush-marks
evoking the sulphurous fumes rising off its surface. For all this
élan, the artist is not distracted from his exploratory
initiative, beaches, bridges and footpaths providing points of
practical access to this new world, bearing out Simon Schama's
contention that an ongoing 'negotiation between austerity and
extravagance' is integral to a Dutch sensibility.
In
the exhibition's other principle sequence, based once again in
his cherished and so familiar Provence somewhere at the foot of
Mont Ventoux, Jeroen Krabbé has created perhaps his most
consistently lyrical paintings to date. Unlike the work from Australasia,
the Provence paintings have no counterparts or foreshadowings
in watercolour. The artist tackles his subjects head on on canvas,
sometimes, indeed, several at a time, working in a sequence dictated
by the changing light of day. There are still paths which draw
the viewer into these vine-strewn foothills which the artist energetically
pursues in treatments typically in portrait format, but these
lines are in a sense subservient to another compositional constant:
a structure almost musical which seems to underpin such subjects.
'I see a landscape,' Krabbé comments apropos his work in
France, 'in a kind of rhythm… as in a symphony where many
instruments together contribute the tone colour… I set up
a canvas by rendering details in specific rhythms - vines planted
in row upon row, olive trees, dark notes of the cypresses…'
The
final, shorter sequence of paintings in the new exhibition has
its origin in another discovery, the artist's first visit to Suriname,
the former Dutch Guyana. His experiences in the country's interior
find expression in a quartet of bold images of river and forest,
each dominated by a single natural feature, executed in a restricted
palette orchestrated accordingly.
Biography
JEROEN
KRABBÉ was born in Amsterdam in 1944 into a family of painters.
His grandfather was a noted member of the Larense School and his
father is also a painter, as well as the author of works on art
and education.
After
studies at the Rietveld Academy of Art, Amsterdam (1961-62), Jeroen
Krabbé changed course and went to Drama School in Amsterdam,
graduating in 1965. For ten years he worked in theatre and film,
both acting and directing, building a major reputation as one
of Holland's most successful and best-regarded actors.
In
1975 Krabbé decided to return to his long-sustained commitment
to painting. On the recommendation of the painter Melle, whose
influence is evident in Krabbé's earlier work, he entered
the National Academy of Fine Art in Amsterdam (1978-81). Here
he was guided by Friso ten Holt, as he began to discover his own,
partial path to abstraction. Since 1984 Krabbé has held
exhibitions widely in Holland, including Drie Generaties Krabbé
(Three Krabbé Generations) at the Singer Museum, Laren
(1985) and a major public retrospective at the Gemeentelijke Expositieruimte,
Kampen (1992). In 1998 his work was chosen to feature in De Losgezongen
Toets: figurative art in the Netherlands since 1945 at the Eelde
Museum, North Holland. In 1999, along with Karel Appel, he was
appointed by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands a Commander in the
Order of the Dutch Lion, his country's highest distinction.
Since
1992 Jeroen Krabbé has been represented by Francis Kyle
Gallery. Between 1993 and 2007 he has held ten one-man exhibitions
there, seven of these devoted to works in oil and three to watercolours.
In 2004 Jeroen Krabbé: painter by Ruud van der Neut, a
comprehensive account of his career in painting, was published
by Waanders of Zwolle in Dutch and English editions. Jeroen Krabbé,
Painter: a retrospective, Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle, Netherlands,
2008.
Public
Retrospective
From
11 February to 1 June 2008 the Museum De Fundatie in Zwolle, Netherlands
will present a major retrospective of Jeroen Krabbé's painting
career. With some 250 works, including loans from many collections
worldwide, Jeroen Krabbé, Painter: a Retrospective, introduced
by Prof. Ronald de Leeuw, Director of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,
will give for the first time a complete overview of Jeroen Krabbé's
oeuvre.
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