Anton Martineau - Houtskoop drawing, Portrait .

Anton Martineau (Amsterdam, 1926 - 2017) At an early age, he learned house and decorative painting, as well as the stylization of various plants, animal forms, and objects for decoration and advertising purposes. Supported by a number of fellow painters, including Jan Sierhuis, he followed his intuition, the path that lay before him. 'Narrative' elements are hidden within Anton Martineau's oeuvre. Newspapers, letters, shoes, and everyday objects, just like love, eroticism, and fear, form his themes. Starting from small ink drawings, he begins his journey and continues his endless quest, which seems to have no end because, as he himself claims, the work is never finished. Over the years, Anton Martineau built up an impressive oeuvre. Paintings, drawings, and many hundreds of poems are the result of a passionate life. His paintings form the focal point. Painted explosively and with much contrasting black, they depict the relationship between man and woman and, in a broader sense, the relationship of a man with his environment. Whether he has a model lie on a divan, paints portraits, or creates still lifes, his works consistently bear witness to a great emotional intensity. The human being is depicted as a personality with many faces: fear, joy, and amazement—a range of emotions on one and the same canvas. He is driven as both a painter and a draftsman. Quick sketches often precede his painted work. He discards nothing during the creative process. Fortunately so, for his drawings also fascinate and inspire wonder. After all, he masters charcoal, pencil, chalk, and abstraction like no other.