Sjef van Schaijk - Unknown

The Brabant artist Sjef van Schaijk (1901-1985) did not paint to please. His work served as an outlet for his personal experiences and emotions, in which he did not shy away from heavy themes, such as man and his struggle for existence and the mysteries of faith and life. In terms of style, his oeuvre shows great variation. He worked with artists such as Hendrik Wiegersma and Gerard Princée, with whom he also shared a studio for a while and made several study trips through Europe. Although he exhibited several times in the Netherlands and Belgium, Van Schaijk remained relatively unknown. It was only at a later age that he received recognition for his important contribution to Brabant painting. Sjef van Schaijk was born in Ravenstein in 1901 into a poor family, which moved to Helmond in 1916. At the end of the twenties he started painting according to his own ideas, which he combined with unskilled work. He drew inspiration from his immediate surroundings, concentrating on depicting the hard life of farmers and workers. He also painted still lifes and religious scenes in a sober realistic style, in which influences of magical realism can be read. For example, his paintings show affinity with the work of Wim Schumacher and Raoul Hynckes. Van Schaijk distinguished himself by his emphatic contour lines, unmodelled colour areas, graceful linework and rich colours. Unlike many of his realistic contemporaries, Van Schaijk's early work does not so much express social criticism as affinity and resignation. During his study trips, Van Schaijk became acquainted with the work of Belgian surrealists and expressionists, such as René Magritte, Paul Delvaux and Constant Permeke. The influence of these painters translated into a surrealist idiom from the 1950s onwards. Disturbing dream images and sharply outlined, plastically designed fantasy figures stand out against desolate landscapes with a low horizon. After 1960, the figures become increasingly larger, until they almost seem to outgrow the image plane. Thematically, too, oppression takes over, with nightmarish scenes in which man grotesquely surrenders to vices such as drinking and ambition. Van Schaijk also experimented with a more abstract expressionist style in soft pastel shades. In the 1970s, he developed an idiom of whimsical human figures filled with wood structures, which populate his canvases like a kind of tree stumps come to life.