Michael Berkhemer - Large oil painting - 1991 - geometric composition - signed MJB91 - Sold

• Large oil on handmade paper painting "geometric composition in 3 colors" by the 2022 deceased Amsterdam artist Michael Berkhemer (1948-2022). Signed and dated lower right MJB '91. Placed in a simple wooden box frame - the painting is in very good condition.

'I still remember that I first used a purple pencil and then colored over it with yellow. That moment that I saw; how beautiful!' Growing up in Arnhem, as the son of self-taught sculptor Willem Berkhemer, Michael Berkhemer (1948) draws and paints from a young age. Sensitivity to color immediately plays a role. There is no other option for Berkhemer than the art academy, but he does not yet apply the word artist to himself; 'I wanted to be a biologist, because I thought I could sit outside all day drawing plants.'


The gymnasium could not hold Berkhemer's attention and at the age of 17 he went to the art academy in Arnhem, where he was taught by artists such as Henk Peeters, Peter Struycken and Johan de Haas. It was a time with a lot of conflict between the different teachers, where the gap between formal abstraction and the painters who worked from reality seemed big. When he left the academy, at the age of 22, Berkhemer was asked to become a teacher. Why did they want him, so young as he was? 'Yes, I could do things. I was good.' But he did not accept the offer, he wanted to leave Arnhem as soon as possible and left for Amsterdam with his then girlfriend.



Fresh from the academy, Berkhemer paints women with lush long hair, surrounded by flowers. Berkhemer also earns a living by painting children's portraits. He is still confronted with the result from time to time. 'A bit like Jan Toorop, but bad. I did what I had to do, but I never really got the hang of it.' He has not painted portraits for a long time. Through Morandi-like still lifes, his work became increasingly simple.

Berkhemer still lives and works in Amsterdam. He is at home there, every day he walks back and forth between his house and his studio, past the hordes of tourists in front of the Anne Frank House. And there, among his own paintings and wall sculptures, Berkhemer pulls out a painting by Johan de Haas; the painted skin, the abstraction that is not abstraction, the subtle colour nuances; his time at the academy was clearly not in vain. He also appears to have learned a lot from Struycken, with whom the relationship was difficult at the time. Such as the balance between emotion and reason, which plays a major role in Berkhemer's work. 'Well, you have to become who you are. Who said that again?'

June 7, 2016
Text: Jantine Kremer