Harrie Kuijten artwork • painting • previously for sale Figures on a beach

A summery beach scene, painted by Harrie Kuyten in smooth, strong brushstrokes and an exuberant colour. On the beach sunbathers, chairs and yellow and red-and-white striped beach bars with canopies, which, messy together, are turned towards the sun. The sea is bright blue, with a narrow strip of bright white where the waves break on the beach. We can almost hear the rustle of the surf and the exuberant voices of the bathers. The blue of sky, sea and shadow was a specialty of the painter. It is somewhere between turquoise and sea green and is sometimes icy in hue. Kuyten found the colour along the North Holland coast, especially when he moved from Amsterdam to Groet near Bergen in 1936. Until then, his favorite themes were figures, the female nude and cityscapes. In the mid-twenties, these were supplemented with still lifes, landscapes and beach views. The painter loved the coast, the vastness, the light and the wind. His 'beaches' were always preceded by outdoor studies, in which he determined the composition. Then he also found the colours and, as he said: '(...) the structure of the sky, of the beach with the rolling sea and the way the wind blows there through that light'. These beach views are rightly a highlight in his oeuvre.