Anton Rooskens artwork • painting • previously for sale Chrysanthemums
Anton Rooskens
Horst 1906-1976 Amsterdam
1906-1976
Chrysanthemums
oil on canvas 90.0 x 75.4 cm, signed l.r. and painted ca. 1938-1941
This painting was previously for sale.
Anton Rooskens had been working as an artist for some time when, in 1945, he made a radical turnabout and began working in a free, unfettered idiom. This led to him to joining the Netherlands Experimental Group and then the Cobra artists. Rooskens drew inspiration for his abstract expressionist pictures from ‘primitive’ African and pre-Columbian art, which had been discovered by many artists after the war. Thus, idols, masks, shields and typical African ornament can be found in nearly all his works of the 40s and 50s, which are also dominated by a lively interplay of lines and liberal use of black. After 1965 the compositions become increasingly colorful. The shapes often have black outlines, and bird motifs in red, yellow and blue are used extensively.