Kees Verweyartist • painter • watercolourist • draughtsmanAmsterdam 1900-1995 Haarlem

The Haarlem painter Kees Verwey, who is best known for his watercolours, painted and watercoloured almost exclusively flowers, portraits and still lifes from his studio, which has become famous for its enchanting chaos. Verwey regarded his style as a continuation of the Hague School and the Amsterdam Impressionists who placed 'everything in a transparent light'. He considered watercolour to be the medium par excellence of the Impressionists.

Verwey grew up in a socially committed and culture-loving family. The poet Albert Verwey and the architect H.P Berlage were his uncles. Verwey showed artistic aspirations from an early age and made drawings of everything he encountered. When he stays with Uncle Albert, he is introduced to work by Isaac Israels, Willem Witsen and Floris Verster, among others, from his uncle's art collection. Verster's still lifes in particular made a deep impression on him. Verwey studies for a year at the School for Arts and Crafts in Haarlem and then for a year at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam under the supervision of J.H. Jurres. He quickly got bored of both schools and stuck with the lessons of Henri Boot, the founder of the Haarlem School. In 1941, Verwey settled in a 17th-century building on the Spaarne, distanced himself from everything that happened around him and worked in his studio in the 'l'art for l'art' idea of ​​the Tachtigers group. Verwey consciously allowed himself to be influenced by the artists he admired. These included French (post-)impressionists such as Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard and after the Second World War CoBrA painters such as Karel Appel and Constant. His later work was inspired by Cubists such as Pablo Picasso and George Braque.

In 1961 his work was honored with the Rembrandt Prize. At the age of 78, Verwey received a retrospective exhibition with enormous critical acclaim in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. After his teacher Boot died in 1963, Verwey seemed to discover his own style and years of experimentation followed in his studio at the Spaarne, where he remained active into old age. This resulted in an impressionist style that mixed with the colorful expressionism of the moderns.