Frans Thomas Koppelaar (born April 23, 1943), is a Dutch

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

, who was born in

The Hague, Netherlands The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

. From 1963 to 1969, he attended the Royal Academy of Visual Arts at The Hague. He moved to

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

in 1968. His

landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of Terrestrial ecoregion, land, its landforms, and how they integrate with Nature, natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionar ...

and Amsterdam

cityscape In the visual arts, a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. It is the urban equivalent of a landscape. ''Townscape'' is ...

s are painted in a style that recalls the classical tradition of the

Hague School The Hague School is a group of artists who lived and worked in The Hague between 1860 and 1890. Their work was heavily influenced by the Realism (visual arts), realist painters of the French Barbizon school. The painters of the Hague school genera ...

and the Amsterdam Impressionists. Koppelaar's work is congenial to a figurative movement in Dutch contemporary painting that evolved during the 1990s in a reaction to the pared-down

conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

and the too pompous art-theories of that period. Through the years his style evolved into a simpler, straightforward approach. By 1984, he no longer identified himself with any

art movement An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defin ...

. Koppelaar is also known as a

portraitist A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expressions are predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this re ...

Bibliography

*Brunt, Ineke & Eisema, Joan (2004), "Gegrepen door het moment - Amsterdam in olieverf" ("Grasped by the moment - Amsterdam in oils"), ''Stichting de Heeren Keyser'' *"Amsterdam Urban Landscapes from the Meentwijck Collection" (2003), Auction House Christie's, Amsterdam *Denninger, Carole (2008), "Amsterdam 365 Stadsgezichten", ''THOTH, Bussum NL''

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Koppelaar, Frans 1943 births Living people Dutch painters Dutch male painters Dutch landscape painters Dutch portrait painters Royal Academy of Art, The Hague alumni Cityscape artists Artists from The Hague