![De scheve fles](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/De_scheve_fles.JPG)
Patrick Bakker (12 November 1910 in
Apeldoorn
Apeldoorn (; Dutch Low Saxon: ) is a municipality and city in the province of Gelderland in the centre of the Netherlands. It is located about 60 km east of Utrecht, 60 km west of Enschede, 25 km north of Arnhem and 35 km south of Zwolle. The ...
, the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
– 28 December 1932 in
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 ...
) was a Dutch artist in
oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
s and pen or
pastel drawings in the first half of the twentieth century. At the time of his death he was considered a "prodigy", in the words of
Bénézit
The ''Benezit Dictionary of Artists'' (in French, ''Bénézit: Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs'') is an extensive publication of bibliographical information on painters, sculptors, designers and engravers created ...
's ''Dictionnaire''. Despite his short life, he left a large collection of works characterized by an expressive freedom in his use of colour, confident draughtsmanship, and controlled impetuosity. The art critic
Abraham Marie Hammacher spoke highly of him in ''Stromingen en persoonlijkheden : schets van een halve eeuw schilderkunst in Nederland, 1900–1950'' (p. 140).
Biography
Patrick Bakker grew up in a cultured and well-to-do environment with many connections in the European art world, which strongly encouraged his early vocation. In his youth, he travelled extensively in the Netherlands as well as abroad (France, England, Germany, later Venice and Vienna), where he admired architecture, visited museums, practised his art and befriended a wide variety of people of all ages and backgrounds. In 1928, he left school before his finals and went to Amsterdam to work firstly with
Geert Grauss
Geert Grauss (9 July 1882 – 1 October 1929) was a Dutch painter. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics.
References
1882 births
1929 deaths
20th-century Dutch painters
Dutch ...
, then, in 1929 – after a long illness – with
Martin Monnikendam Martin may refer to:
Places
* Martin City (disambiguation)
* Martin County (disambiguation)
* Martin Township (disambiguation)
Antarctica
* Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land
* Port Martin, Adelie Land
* Point Martin, South Orkney Islands
Austral ...
. In September 1931, despite his delicate health, he settled in Paris, studying first at the
Académie Julian
The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number a ...
and
Académie Colarossi
The Académie Colarossi (1870–1930) was an art school in Paris founded in 1870 by the Italian model and sculptor Filippo Colarossi. It was originally located on the Île de la Cité, and it moved in 1879 to 10 rue de la Grande-Chaumière in the ...
, then, from Spring 1932 onwards, in
Lucien Simon
Lucien Joseph Simon (1861 – 1945) was a French painter and teacher born in Paris.
Early life and education
Simon was born in Paris. After graduating from the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, he studied painting at the studio of Jules Didier, then from ...
's studio at the École des Beaux-Arts. He met many French and foreign artists who lived in the French capital at that time, including
André Lhote
André Lhote (5 July 1885 – 24 January 1962) was a French Cubist painter of figure subjects, portraits, landscapes and still life. He was also active and influential as a teacher and writer on art.
Early life and education
Lhote was born ...
,
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...
,
Conrad Kikkert and
Piet Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being ...
. There was a time when he spent every Sunday with
Jacques-Émile Blanche
Jacques-Émile Blanche (; 1 January 1861 – 30 September 1942) was a French artist, largely self-taught, who became a successful portrait painter, working in London and Paris.
Early life
Blanche was born in Paris. His father, whose name he s ...
, who also painted his portrait. He was also close to the young
David Ogilvy
David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
and spent much time with the Russian émigré community. It was in fact with the Troubetskoy family, who were lent an outbuilding at the Château de l’Etoile, in the Touraine region, that Patrick Bakker was to live his last few weeks of creativity, during the summer of 1932, from which he brought back a series of remarkably fine ink drawings. In the autumn of that year he fell ill again and went for a rest with his family in Hilversum. He barely had the time to organise his first personal exhibition in Amsterdam when he went into hospital and died a month later at the age of twenty-two.
Personality
Endowed with a rich and attractive temperament, both fanciful and determined, Patrick Bakker was a good linguist, who entertained a vast correspondence all over Europe. Eager for experience, he seems to have alternated periods of intense and solitary work with a festive and varied social life. He also wrote several poems in all four languages, French, English, Dutch and even German, mingling the sadness of Apollinaire with a weird nonsensical streak.
Work
Despite having been granted just three years to develop, Patrick Bakker quickly attained an audacious mastery and loftiness that struck his contemporaries. His work presents, however, a pronounced stylistic diversity according to the medium he was using.
Painting : His oil paintings and pastels are especially striking for their sense of colour. During the same years in which Dutch artists like
Dick Ket
Dick Ket (October 10, 1902 – September 15, 1940) was a Dutch magic realist painter noted for his still lifes and self-portraits.
Biography
Born in Den Helder, Ket spent his childhood in Hoorn and then Ede before attending the Kunstoefen ...
,
Raoul Hynckes or
Pyke Koch
Pieter Frans Christiaan Koch, better known as Pyke Koch (July 15, 1901October 27, 1991), was a Dutch artist who painted in a magic realist manner.
Pyke Koch and the painter Carel Willink are considered to be the foremost representatives in the ...
were aiming at casting rough, mysterious or dream-like images into an impeccable, yet somewhat frozen workmanship, Patrick Bakker remained attached to the ideals of high art and a sensual, expressive, even expressionist technique. His subjects are traditional – nudes, portraits, still-lives and landscapes – yet he portrayed them with continual colour experiments. This is, probably, his most personal contribution to painting. Whereas the German expressionists or the Dutch painters of the
De Ploeg
De Ploeg (; en, The Plough or ''The Group'') is an artist collective from the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. The collective was established in 1918 by a group of young artists. Their goal was to create new opportunities for exhibitions and ...
movement (except perhaps
George Martens) liked to use primary colours, Patrick Bakker, whilst staying clear of any hint of impressionism, cultivated bitter-sweet and dissonant juxtapositions, introducing often deliberately dirty hues, with a controlled violence of expression.
![Trees at Nieuw-Amelisweerd](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Trees_at_Nieuw-Amelisweerd.JPG)
Drawing : His ink drawings, on the other hand, are often very delicate and demonstrate his innate draughtsmanship : his later views of Paris, his pictures of woods or hills, are carried out in a fine, meticulous and elegant style, alternating blank areas of white paper with passages of great intricacy.
![The Chatterbox of the year 1933](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/The_Chatterbox_of_the_year_1933.JPG)
It must be added, too, that ever since he was a child, Patrick Bakker never stopped producing – parallel to his work – a wealth of caricatures, doodles and illustrations. Even his poems and texts, though strictly for private use, were carefully bound together by him and illustrated with imaginative scribbles, often swarming with figures and silhouettes that suggest, behind the social mockery, a fantastical and restless imagination.
Exhibitions
Patrick Bakker only exhibited once during his lifetime, in 1932, at Henri Cohen's Atelier voor Binnenhuiskunst. After his death, other exhibitions followed: at the J. Goudstikker gallery (1934), at the
Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum
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 ...
(1936), at the Kunstzaal voor de Kunst in Utrecht (1938) and finally, after the war, at the Van Abbe Museum of Eindhoven (1958/1959). Apart from a portrait that entered the Boijmans Museum's collection after the 1936 exhibition, the rest of his work remains in private hands, mainly with descendants of the Bakker family. Only his ink drawings and oil paintings were ever exhibited; his poems and imaginative doodles and cartoons remain, to this day, unknown to the public.
Bibliography
* Abraham Marie Hammacher, ''Stromingen en persoonlijkheden : schets van een halve eeuw schilderkunst in Nederland, 1900-1950''
Tendencies and personalities : sketches from half a century of painting in The Netherlands, 1900-1950" G.M. Meulenhoff, Amsterdam, 1955
* Emmanuel Bénézit (dir.), ''Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs de tous les temps et tous les pays'',
Critical and documentary dictionary of painters, sculptors, draughtsmans and engravers of all times and all places » new ed., Gründ, Paris, 1999, 14 vol.
* Robert Maillard (dir.), René Huyghe (pref.), ''Dictionnaire universel de la peinture''
Universal dictionary of painting » Le Robert, Paris, 1975, 6 vol.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bakker, Patrick
1910 births
1932 deaths
People from Apeldoorn
20th-century Dutch painters
Dutch male painters
Académie Julian alumni
Académie Colarossi alumni
20th-century Dutch male artists