Dick Ket (October 10, 1902 – September 15, 1940) was a Dutch magic realist painter noted for his

still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

s and

self-portrait A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century tha ...

Biography

Born in

Den Helder Den Helder () is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Den Helder occupies the northernmost point of the North Holland peninsula. It is home to the country's main naval base. From here the Royal TESO fe ...

, Ket spent his childhood in

Hoorn Hoorn () is a city and municipality in the northwest of the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the largest town and the traditional capital of the region of West Friesland. Hoorn is located on the Markermeer, 20 kilometers ( ...

and then Ede before attending the Kunstoefening in

Arnhem Arnhem ( or ; german: Arnheim; South Guelderish: ''Èrnem'') is a city and municipality situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands about 55 km south east of Utrecht. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland, located on both banks of ...

from 1922 to 1925. Born with a serious heart defect (believed to be

tetralogy of Fallot Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF), formerly known as Steno-Fallot tetralogy, is a congenital heart defect characterized by four specific cardiac defects. Classically, the four defects are: *pulmonary stenosis, which is narrowing of the exit from the ri ...

with

dextrocardia Dextrocardia (from Latin ''dextro'', meaning "right hand side," and Greek ''kardia'', meaning "heart") is a rare congenital condition in which the apex of the heart is located on the right side of the body, rather than the more typical placement t ...

),Lock, Last, & Dunea 2001, p. 66. he was prevented from traveling by debilitating weakness as well as by phobias, and lived secluded in his parents' house in Bennekom after 1930. Exposed to

modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradi ...

mainly through reproductions, he concentrated on painting still lifes and self-portraits. His health worsened in his last decade, leading to his early death in Bennekom in 1940.

Works

While Ket's earliest paintings are

impressionistic Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

in style, he was influenced decisively by the art of the

Neue Sachlichkeit The New Objectivity (in german: Neue Sachlichkeit) was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s as a reaction against expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the ''Kunsthalle'' in Mannheim, who ...

in 1929, and thereafter painted in a magic realist style. His meticulously composed and rendered still lifes feature favorite objects such as bottles, an empty bowl, eggs, and musical instruments. Ket juxtaposed these objects in angular arrangements, seen from a high vantage point, their cast shadows creating emphatic diagonals. These compositions reveal the influence of

cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

as filtered through the posters of

Cassandre Cassandre, pseudonym of Adolphe Jean-Marie MouronNotice d'autorité personne ...

, which are frequently depicted in Ket’s paintings. Another source of inspiration came from

early Netherlandish painting Early Netherlandish painting, traditionally known as the Flemish Primitives, refers to the work of artists active in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period. It flourished especiall ...

, which Ket admired for its atmosphere of austere reverence that he called its quality of "intrusiveness".Grove Art Online: Dick Ket Ket completed approximately 140 paintings, including forty self-portraits. As a result of his technical experimentation with different formulations and additives to the glaze medium, some of his paintings are not completely dry after six decades. In his self-portraits the progressive symptoms of his physical deterioration, such as

cyanosis Cyanosis is the change of body tissue color to a bluish-purple hue as a result of having decreased amounts of oxygen bound to the hemoglobin in the red blood cells of the capillary bed. Body tissues that show cyanosis are usually in locations ...

and finger clubbing, are apparent. Museums holding works by Dick Ket include the

Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the St ...

in Amsterdam, the

Museum Arnhem Museum Arnhem (formerly known as Gemeentemuseum Arnhem and then Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem) is a museum of modern art, contemporary art, applied art and design in Arnhem, Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_m ...

, and the

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Municipal Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen () is an art museum in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The name of the museum is derived from the two most important collectors of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and Daniël George van Beuningen. It is located at ...

in Rotterdam. Dick Ket - Stilleven met boeken, zoutzuurfles, bloemen in gemberpot op gestreept tafelkleed 1925.jpg, ''Still life with books'' (1925) Ket Stilleven met viool (1932).jpg, ''Still life with violin'' (1932) Dick-Ket (1902-1940), Stilleven met broodjes,1935, olieverf op doek 69,5x61cm.jpg, ''Still life with bread'' (1935) Dick Ket - Portrait of Nel Schilt.jpg, ''Portrait of Nel Schilt'' (before 1939) Dick Ket - Dubbelportret van de schilder en zijn vader.jpg, ''Double portrait with father'' (1939)

References

External links

Biographical sketch
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ket, Dick 1902 births 1940 deaths People from Den Helder 20th-century Dutch painters Dutch male painters 20th-century Dutch male artists

Biography

Works

References

Further reading

External links