Laurens van Kuik artwork • painting • previously for sale Arums
Laurens van Kuik
's Gravenmoer 1889-1963 Den Haag
1889-1963
Arums
oil on painter's board 125.0 x 89.3 cm, signed u.r.
This painting was previously for sale.
In 1917, the painter-poet Laurens van Kuik was one of the founders of the Rotterdam avant-garde artists' federation De Branding. His artistic views were a mixture of theosophy and psychology: the artwork had to be derived from images from the subconscious mind. He himself called the result transcendental realism. This resulted in a remarkable oeuvre. Van Kuik, however, was hardly understood in his day. That is why after 1918 he turned to more traditional subjects such as still lifes and landscapes. In 1927 he left for Paris but returned to the Netherlands after five years, leaving behind all his work, which was subsequently lost. After a breakdown, he started again in 1945 in his very own, enigmatic idiom.