Rob Scholte - Giclée: Porsche (334) - 2014

Giclée by Rob Scholte. Title: Porche ('334'). Number: AP You see a reflection in the hood of a church-like building with a Porsche emblem Year: 2014. Dimensions sheet: H60 x w43cm. Dimensions image: H37.5 x w37.5cm. The work is signed, center bottom, by the artist. The authenticity of this work is fully guaranteed. A certificate of authenticity can be e-mailed upon request.

Shipping/pick up:

Upon purchase, the work can be picked up in 's-Gravenzande (near The Hague (Scheveningen), Rotterdam and Delft and 5 minutes from the beach). The period for collection, with advance payment, is very generous, in other words, the buyer can collect the work weeks or even months later and, if possible, combine it with a visit to one of the above-mentioned cities or the beach. The work can also be sent via Postnl. Our shipping days are Tuesday and Thursday.

Robert Egbert Gerardus (Rob) Scholte (Amsterdam, June 1, 1958) is a Dutch artist.

Life and work until 1994

In his youth Scholte lived in Castricum, Doorn, Heiloo and Egmond aan den Hoef. At the age of 17 he left his parental home through the attic window.[1] From 1977 to 1982 he studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. After that he was part of the artist collective W139, where he made his debut with Sandra Derks in 1982 with the 'masterpiece' Rom 87 (now in the collection of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, on loan to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen), a series of free-style painted variations on a book of children's coloring pages. He would replace this style with meticulously painted works that he began exhibiting in 1984 in the newly founded gallery The Living Room in Amsterdam.

In 1986 he caused a stir with the painting, Utopia (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen), in which Manet's Olympia was quoted. However, he had replaced Olympia and her servant with wooden dolls. It turned out that he had not invented this idea himself, but had borrowed it from an obscure postcard that he had found by chance. Scholte responded by painting a copy of the newspaper article in which he was accused of plagiarism, a literal quote from half a newspaper page.[2] With How to Star, a solo exhibition in Boijmans Van Beuningen, paintings from 1983-1988, Scholte received both praise and criticism. Scholte's works were shown at the documenta in 1987 and in 1990 he was asked to decorate the Dutch pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

In 1991 he met Micky Hoogendijk with whom he started a relationship. He made her director of his BV and on May 31, 1994 they got married in house temple the RoXY.

Also in 1991, Rob Scholte BV won the commission for a 1200 square meter wall and ceiling painting at the Huis Ten Bosch Resort in Nagasaki, Japan. Scholte worked with a large number of assistants on the painting, entitled Après nous le déluge, about the constant repetition of war in history. The opening was to take place on August 9, 1995, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, but had to be postponed due to an attack on Scholte.

From 1993 to 1999 Scholte was a teacher at the art academy in Kassel.

Bomb attack

On November 24, 1994, Scholte and Hoogendijk got into his dark blue BMW 525i at the Laurierstraat in Amsterdam. Shortly after he had driven away, a hand grenade exploded under the car. Scholte was seriously injured. Both of his legs had to be amputated above the knee. Hoogendijk, who was pregnant with Scholte's child, had a miscarriage. The perpetrator of the attack was never found. One of the theories was that the attack was intended for lawyer Oscar Hammerstein, but that the perpetrator had mistaken the car. Hammerstein was driving a BMW of the same type, the same color, and with almost the same license plate, which was parked nearby.

Scholte himself initially accused a fellow artist, the marginalized photographer Paul Blanca. Later, the poet Koos Dalstra was blamed. Dalstra started a libel case against Scholte and won it all the way to the Supreme Court. Other theories relate to the shady environment of artists, cocaine dealers and money laundering practices in which Scholte is said to have moved at the time (described by Joost Zwagerman in his novel Gimmick!) and come down to the fact that the attack was a punishment for gambling debts, cocaine debts or unfulfilled obligations.

In 2019, Scholte stated in an interview that he knew who the perpetrators were.

In early February 1995, Scholte founded a Committee of Vigilance, after the Committee of Vigilance that Menno ter Braak and E. du Perron founded in the 1930s against the rising national socialism. The idea was suggested to Scholte by Felix Rottenberg. This committee was supposed to become a political movement, but the initiative died a quiet death. Scholte left for Japan again that same year, to complete the mural Après nous le déluge. He then moved to Tenerife. Hoogendijk and Scholte separated in 1997. Scholte later remarried and has lived in the Netherlands with his wife and two children since 2003. In 2021, he lives with his mother, again in the room he ran away from when he was 17. He is still together with his wife.

Museum

Rob Scholte Museum, Den Helder

Rob Scholte Museum just before closing, 2018

In 2013, a museum dedicated to him was opened with limited resources in the former Main Post Office in Den Helder, designed by architect Jo Kruger in 1967. The museum was initially seen as an asset to Den Helder,[5] but after a few years the municipality reclaimed the building in order to be able to sell it. In October 2017, the judge ruled in summary proceedings that the museum could continue to exist for the time being. In April 2018, however, the museum was evicted following a ruling on appeal. Subsequently, in September 2018, the Alkmaar District Court ruled in substantive proceedings that Scholte did not have the building on loan, but had a lease agreement with the municipality. This could mean that the eviction had been unlawful. However, a year later, on 18 September 2019, the Alkmaar court ruled that the municipality had acted lawfully, that Scholte did not have a lease agreement but a user agreement and therefore owed the municipality an amount of several hundred thousand euros for eviction and storage costs and gas, water and electricity. The municipality seized Scholte's collection to have it auctioned. A summary judge stopped this. In the end, the collection was allowed to be auctioned after all.

Method

Scholte is an image maker. He arranges and places images – from the mass media, from his own extensive archive – in a new context, with which he provides those images with a new meaning. In his works one often finds contradictions and oppositions that are 'overcome' in their new context. The meticulously painted works of his hand are usually produced by assistants and signed by himself. In this he follows a 17th century method of working. His working method is illustrative of postmodernism and emphasizes the permanent influx of images that surround, shape and mould us. Thematically the media are always; he draws inspiration from them, criticizes their manipulation and also acts as a 'media personality' himself.