Reinier Lucassen
born 1939, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
"Is Art", 1979
Original Hand-Signed Color Lithograph -
Dated 1979
Reinier Lucassen (Dutch, b. 1939)
Reinier Lucassen is a Dutch painter born in
1939 in Amsterdam.
He studied at the National Normal School for Art Teachers in Amsterdam. From
the beginning of his period as an artist, he combined trivial elements, such as
cartoon characters, table lamps, armchairs and plants, with large brightly
colored surfaces and expressive elements.
Typicaly for Lucassen's style is that he often integrates characters into the
image in a pictorial way and sometimes gives the works poetic or enigmatic
titles.
He made his debut in abstract design and after 1964 began to use figurative
elements that were borrowed, among other things, from art history or the world
of the comic strip, so that in his works several styles and motifs can be used
simultaneously.
In 1966/1967 he worked together with Raveel, Elias and De Keyser on the
paintings of the cellar corridors of the castle in Beervelde.
He is mentioned in Two centuries of signatures of Belgian artists.
Reinier Lucassen (Amsterdam, 1939) is a Dutch painter. He is a representative of
the painting movement called New Figuration. Others in this movement are
Alphons Freijmuth, Pieter Holstein, Etienne Elias and Roger Raveel. In 1986 he
exhibited for the Netherlands in the Rietveld Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
Work
Lucassen studied at the Institute for Applied
Arts Education in Amsterdam. From 1960 he developed a figurative painting style
that combines recognizable elements from everyday life with abstract symbols
and signs. His early work is seen as a European response to pop art.
From the start, Lucassen combined trivial
elements, such as cartoon characters, table lamps, armchairs and plants, with
large brightly colored surfaces and expressive elements.
Since 1980 he has been making smaller, more subdued work, for example powerful
signs built from simple dots, distantly reminiscent of the dot paintings of the
Aborigines. Typical of Lucassen's style is that he often integrates characters
into the image in a pictorial manner and sometimes gives the works poetic or enigmatic
titles. The assemblages he makes are made up of everyday materials such as
wood, tin or rubber that suggest a new meaning through their arrangement. For
many years he was senior lecturer in painting at the AKI in Enschede.
Group projects
• In 1966 Lucassen worked with Etienne Elias,
Raoul De Keyser and Roger Raveel on paintings in the cellars of the castle in
Beervelde.
• In 1967, together with Ger van Elk and Jan
Dibbets, Lucassen founded the International Institute for Retraining of
Artists, which produced a number of manifestos and projects.
Other
A well-known painting by Lucassen, on long-term
loan from the RCE in the collection of the Dordrechts Museum, is entitled: A
cozy corner (1968). It represents an interior with an armchair, a table
lamp, a plant and a painting or window in combination with a vertically
checkered red-green strip. This work was made available in reproduction by the
Public Art Property to the Dutch Railways, so that it could be seen for years
in a small format in certain, most regional trains.
Prizes
1970 Cassandra Foundation Award
1976 David Röell Prize
One-man exhibitions (selection)
Lucassen regularly exhibited in museums in the
Netherlands and abroad. He exhibited in Galerie Espace in Amsterdam.
1964 Gallery Espace, Amsterdam
1966 Kunstzaal Markt 17, Enschede
1972 Municipal Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden
1973 De Hallen, Haarlem
1973 Groninger Museum, Groningen
1973 Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp
1976 Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
1979 Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
1983 Museum Fodor, Amsterdam
1986 Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
1987 Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam
1999 Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Amstelveen
2004 De Hallen, Haarlem
2009 Municipal Museum Schiedam.
Lucassen studeerde aan het Instituut voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs in Amsterdam. Hij ontwikkelde vanaf 1960 een figuratieve schilderstijl die herkenbare elementen uit het dagelijks leven combineert met abstracte symbolen en tekens. Zijn werk uit de begintijd wordt gezien als een Europees antwoord op de popart.
Lucassen combineerde vanaf het begin triviale elementen, zoals stripfiguren, schemerlampen, leunstoelen en planten, met grote felgekleurde vlakken en expressieve elementen. Sinds 1980 maakt hij kleiner, ingetogener werk, bijvoorbeeld uit eenvoudige punten opgebouwde krachtige tekens, in de verte herinnerend aan de dotpaintings van aborigines. Typerend voor de stijl van Lucassen is dat hij vaak lettertekens op picturale wijze in het beeld integreert en de werken soms poëtische of raadselachtige titels meegeeft. De assemblages die hij maakt, zijn opgebouwd uit alledaagse materialen als hout, blik of rubber die door hun ordening een nieuwe betekenis suggereren. Hij was jarenlang hoofddocent schilderkunst aan de AKI te Enschede.
Een bekend schilderij van Lucassen, als langdurig bruikleen van de RCE in de collectie van het Dordrechts Museum, is getiteld: Een gezellig hoekje (1968). Het stelt een interieur voor met een leunstoel, een schemerlamp, een plant en een schilderij of raam in combinatie met een verticaal geblokte rood-groene baan. Dit werk was door Openbaar Kunstbezit in reproductie ter beschikking gesteld aan de Nederlandse Spoorwegen, waardoor het jarenlang op klein formaat in bepaalde, meest regionale treinen te zien was.
Lucassen stelde regelmatig tentoon in musea in binnen- en buitenland. Hij exposeerde in Galerie Espace te Amsterdam.
Additional Information:
Lucassen
Lucassen produces images that are formulated / articulated using a pictorial idiom that is rich in associations, memories, non-conformism, symbols, and syntheses, and are always grounded in a powerful personal and expressive style. Although the artist’s world takes shape indoors, his gaze remains focused on the outside world, on life itself. He has been called a thinking painter, a modern symbolist who presents his viewers with a constructed reality which is far from straightforward. With Lucassen, the mystery of painting is in good hands. He ushers you into a wondrous world where there is much to see and where the rational exists alongside the personal and the intuitive – a world where you might think you recognize something but where you are just as likely to be left in amazement without knowing exactly what his formulations and constructions mean. No explanation is needed, though, because even without it the image is still full of meaning.
In his secluded room the curtains are almost always drawn. Only on rare occasions are they slightly opened, offering us a glimpse into the artist’s wondrous world. Not too much, just enough to give us something to hold on to. In his own way Lucassen gives meaning to things that are important to him, things that define and color his world. It might be something trivial, but sometimes he will use the same representation to express his admiration for some art historical masterpiece. He does not simply copy the work, on the contrary: he uses it to access his own reality by expressing his amazement about the enormous human potential. He has the ability to translate every pictorial element of his choice into a new form and meaning, and in so doing always carries it into the present.
In the1960s and 1970s, Lucassen painted constructions in which figurative elements predominate. From the 1980s onward, he abandons figuration, only to reintroduce it in his assemblages of the past fifteen years. The diversity of formal manifestations could also be called a kind of ‘de-stylization’. His unique oeuvre is indeed incomparable. Lucassen has become his own style without falling back on stylistic devices or the constraints of theory. This has resulted in paintings and assemblages of great pictorial and intuitive richness that have allowed him to translate the personal into the universal.
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