Bram Bogart - Oil on board: winter landscape - Sold

Oil on board by Bram Bogart (1921-2012) with a very good provenance. On the back of the work is still the sticker of Kunsthandel Bennewitz, Noordeinde 48, The Hague. See also the interview, from 2007, which was published in Kunstmagazine (https://www.kunstmagazine.net/news/article/113) . Bennewitz was one of the first admirers of the work of Brom Bogart. He regularly bought paintings from him.



Dimensions incl frame: H56 x w66 cm. Dimensions representation: H39 x w49 cm. The work is signed 'Bogaart' at the bottom right, by the artist. The authenticity can be guaranteed.
Passe-partout/frames: Damage to frames is not described. If a work is framed behind glass and the glass is broken, this will be mentioned. Reflection may be visible in photos of framed works.

What Theo was to Vincent van Gogh, Bennewitz was to Bram Bogart. 'From that first meeting onwards, Bennewitz bought paintings from me on a regular basis. He was convinced of the quality of my work. That was of course an important incentive for me. I still lived at home and did nothing but paint in the attic. My father thought that was wonderful. Sometimes he came upstairs with visitors to show me what I was doing. During the war, I went to the academy in The Hague for a little less than a year to obtain an exemption from forced labour. I started with landscapes and still lifes, inspired by pointillism and the work of Vincent van Gogh and Constant Permeke. Two painters I greatly admired. After that, I went my own way. I have always worked on my own.



Origin:
-Art galleries Bennewitz, The Hague.
Bram Bogart (Delft, July 12, 1921 – Sint-Truiden, May 2, 2012) was a Dutch/Belgian abstract painter, sculptor, graphic artist, ceramist and designer. He was also known as Abraham van den Boogaart. He was naturalized as a Belgian in 1969
Because Bogart was trained as a house painter, he was experienced in mixing his own special paint substances in which he mixed the oil paint with water. Because the water in the oil paint dries much faster than the oil paint, many 'drying channels' were created in the applied pasty paint mass. These ensured that the enormous thick layers of oil paint on the canvas received air and could thus dry from the inside out; otherwise most of his works would have sagged long ago, like some paintings by Karel Appel. Bogart's paintings thus actually consist of only a few solid paint strokes of one colour each, which also immediately form a large shape. And a few of these paint strokes placed together on the (firmly stretched and supported canvas) together form the entire painting.
Bogart made his mixed paint substance from standing and boiled poppy oil (in 200-litre barrels) which he first allowed to mature. He then mixed this with pigment powders in one pre-selected colour, and with zinc white. Just before the actual painting, this substance was mixed with water, after which the paint had to be applied quickly to the canvas. Bogart therefore knew in advance in which colours (often four to six) he wanted to make the painting, and where he would place the paint mass on the canvas. After this deliberate phase, a very emotional phase of applying the paint followed. But because of his characteristic working method, nothing of the paint became clogged, so that the openness remains intact and the mobility of the physical application of the paint is also visible; these are an essential element of his art. He applied his characteristic working method to canvases of 2 metres, but also to small format canvases of, for example, 50 cm. From the 1980s onwards he alternated his 'geometric' works with paintings consisting of enormous 'dots of paint' which he placed more or less in a regular pattern; this then characterised the entire painting