Maarten Krabbé
| Maarten Krabbé | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
22 February 1908 Laren, Netherlands |
| Died | 18 February 2005 (aged 96) Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Nationality | Dutch |
| Known for | Painting |
Maarten Krabbé (22 February 1908 – 18 February 2005) was a Dutch painter and art educator.
Krabbé is the son of painter Hendrik Maarten Krabbé (1868–1931) and singer Miep Rust (1874–1956). His sisters were Henny Eskens-Krabbé (who was a resistance fighter in World War II) and Lies van Buren-Krabbé.
Krabbé grew up in Het Gooi, greatly enjoying being surrounded by nature. This would manifest itself in his art work later on in life. In 1913 he moved with his family to Bussum and in 1922 to Zandvoort.
After three years in high school (HBS) in Haarlem, his father gave him his blessing to become a painter. He then enrolled at the National Academy for the Visual Arts (Rijksacademie voor Beeldende Kunsten) in Amsterdam from 1926–1930.
In his youth Krabbé studied the Face Book (Gelatenboek) by Petrus Camper (1780) and found his inspiration as a painter in Cubism, children’s drawings, René Gockinga (1893–1962) and Aubrey Beardsley. When still quite young he discovered the experimental technique of automatic drawing – finding shapes in accidental lines. He was also very sensitive to the power of words, corresponding with writers and poets including Frederik van Eeden, Dulac, Dr. Paul Gachet who was physician to Vincent van Gogh, Simon Carmiggelt, and fellow-painter Melle Oldeboerrigter.
As a more mature artist, one can see in his work how he explores styles and compositions of well-known colleagues in order to find out what makes them so special. We see works (paintings, etchings, drawings, gouaches) in the styles of, among others, Cézanne, Matisse, Géricault, Picasso, Doré, Vuillard and Klee, but always in his own stroke and with the liveliness that characterizes all of his work. Like his father he painted portraits by commission, among which is one of family members of Vincent van Gogh. In the war years of 1940 -1945, the now famous series of etchings was created on the subject of Cervantes'sDon Quixote. After the war, these 18 etchings found their way to the Museo Casa Natal de Cervantes in Spain and just before his death eight masterly oil paintings on the same subject went to the same museum. In 1949 he created drawings and gouaches for the Bible. In the 1970s he painted a series of 72 gouaches on themes from One Thousand and One Nights. His later paintings, such as the Gardens breathe a very personal atmosphere with a power of color and optimism more likely to be associated with a younger painter.
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