Philip Kouwen (18 June 1922, in
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...
– 17 December 2002, in
Warnsveld
Warnsveld is a town in the eastern Netherlands, about 2 km east of Zutphen.
History
The first mention of the village in writing is from the year 1121 as Wansveld, and means "field of Warin or Warni (person)". Warnsveld developed in the Mid ...
) was a Dutch artist notable for his graphic works, mostly landscapes and cityscapes which used grey color.
Kouwen graduated from the
Rotterdam Academy of Art. Rotterdam was badly damaged during World War II, and after the war, in 1949, Kouwen with a group of his former classmates moved to
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 ...
, where it was easier to rent an atelier.
In Dordrecht, he became a member of the Pictura Art Society, and between 1949 and 1961 he had his atelier at Pictura. From 1956, he was teaching at the
Academy of Art and Industry in
Enschede.
Kouwen started his career as a painter, but since the end of the 1950s, he also started working as a graphics designer, which shifted his interests to graphics, in particular, drawing. He started creating cityscapes (most notably, of Dordrecht) and landscapes in the 1960s. Since the 1970s, he exclusively worked with black chalk. In 1984, Kouwen moved from Dordrecht to Warnsveld, and landscapes of
Gelderland
Gelderland (), also known as Guelders () in English, is a province of the Netherlands, occupying the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Netherlands by land area, and second by ...
became his favorite topic, along with still-lifes.
contains a collection of his works.
A number of drawings were bought by the
Rijksprentenkabinet in Amsterdam.
References
{{Authority control (arts)
Dutch artists
Artists from Dordrecht
Artists from Rotterdam