Adriaan "Ad" Dekkers ( Nieuwpoort, South Holland, 21 March 1938 –

Gorinchem Gorinchem ( or ), also spelled Gorkum, is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland South Holland ( nl, Zuid-Holland ) is a province of the Netherlands with a population of over 3.7 million as of Oc ...

, 27 February 1974) was a Dutch artist mostly known for his

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

s involving simple geometrical forms. Dekkers was born to Hendrik Pieter Dekkers, a school principal, and Anna Elizabeth Berdina Godtschalk. Adrian attended his father's school and also received training as a decorative painter. Between 1954 and 1958 he studied at the

Willem de Kooning Academy The Willem de Kooning Academy ( nl, Willem de Kooning Academie) is a Dutch academy of media, art, design, leisure and education based in Rotterdam. It was named after one of its most famous alumni, Dutch fine artist Willem de Kooning. Overview ...

in Rotterdam where he was mostly engaged in drawing of landscapes and still images. In February 1960 Dekkers entered military service, and in December 1961 married Machelina Hendrika van Bruggen, with whom he had one son. From the early 1960s Dekkers became dissatisfied with painting and focused on reliefs, mostly made of plastic. By 1968 he was recognized as a master in this area and started creating monumental sculptures and reliefs in architectural environment. His works became accepted at major international exhibitions, such as the

Biennale de Paris The ''Biennale de Paris'' (English: Paris Biennale) is a noted French art festival. History The 'Biennale de Paris' was launched by Raymond Cogniat in 1959 and set up by André Malraux as he was Minister of Culture to present an overview of young ...

in 1965,

São Paulo Art Biennial The São Paulo Art Biennial (Portuguese: ''Bienal de São Paulo'') was founded in 1951 and has been held every two years since. It is the second oldest art biennial in the world after the Venice Biennale (in existence since 1895), which serves as ...

in 1967 and ''

documenta ''documenta'' is an exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. The ''documenta'' was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau (Federal Horticultura ...

'' in

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

in 1968. He also had a number of solo exhibitions in the Netherlands. After his death in 1974, his works were exhibited in Eindhoven and Düsseldorf and placed in museums in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, England and the United States.

Works

File:Addekkers.jpg, A sculpture in

File:Twee cirkels Ad Dekkers.jpg, ''Two circles'' at the A12 highway near Gouda File:Dordrecht kunstwerk een kwart circel.jpg, ''Quarter circle'' in

Dordrecht Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after R ...

File:Gebroken cirkel Ad Dekkers Spaarndammerdijk Amsterdam.jpg, ''Broken circle'' in Amsterdam

References

Dekkers, Adriaan (1938–1974)
huygens.knaw.nl
Ad Dekkers
explore.rkd.nl {{DEFAULTSORT:Dekkers, Ad 1938 births 1974 deaths 20th-century Dutch sculptors Dutch male sculptors People from Liesveld Willem de Kooning Academy alumni 20th-century Dutch male artists