Ernst Vijlbrief - Amsterdams provo kunstenaar -1959 grote Gouache "Geel blauw en bruin" gesigneerd - Sold

Ernst Vijlbrief (Utrecht, November 25, 1934 – Amsterdam, December 27, 2010) was a Dutch visual artist and board member of several artists' associations, including the Professional Association of Visual Artists.

Vijlbrief[1] was educated at the Institute for Applied Arts Education in Amsterdam and at the Academia di Porta Romana in Florence (1956-1959). He worked in Ibiza and Paris in the late 1950s. At the beginning of February 1961 he married Sylvia Sluyter, daughter of the Amsterdam painter Gerard Sluyter and Lucebert's former lover.[2]

In 1961 he took part in the group exhibition Younger Dutch painters, sculptors and architects: Liga Nieuw Beelden in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and in the same year, in collaboration with the poet Simon Vinkenoog, the publication Spel en Defeat bij de Posthoorn in The Hague was created. Around 1965 he gave guest lectures at the Ravensbourne College of Art in London.

He was part of the Provo generation in Amsterdam in the 1960s and was involved in happenings, such as the expert laboratory with Jasper Grootveld, Theo Kley, Max Reneman and Aad Veldhoen, photographed by Cor Jaring, among others. He was already active in the 1950s with the Genootschap Kunstliefde in Utrecht and became a board member of the Professional Association of Visual Artists (BBK) in Amsterdam at the end of the 1960s. In 1969 he took part in 'BBK actions', such as those in which wall newspapers were pasted at the entrance of the Stedelijk Museum. He also acted in the '4 o'clock TV game': Nee Wereld, Ja Wereld; Government and avant-garde of the fictitious Eastern Bloc country of Oritle. He was co-founder of the Kiechkonservaatooriejum. In 1973 he and Bob Bonies co-founded the Union of Visual Arts Workers (BBKA) based in Utrecht.

From 1974 to 1989 he taught at the AKI in Enschede. In 1975 he was the initiator of the artist collective Universal Moving Artists, which exhibited in the 'new wing' of the Stedelijk Museum. Later he played a prominent role in the establishment of the Stichting Samenwerking Amsterdamse Kunstenaarsverenigingen (SAK). His work, among other things, was on display during the studio exhibitions Public Works in Ruigoord. He was interested in Eastern philosophy and Chinese painting and he taught classes as a Tai chi teacher.

He made landscapes and self-portraits, among other things. He worked in different techniques such as: drawing, watercolor, collage, gouache, India ink, oil paint and graphics: etching. He also made calligraphic improvisations on paper.

His painting style in the 1950s is expressionistic, in line with that of Cobra, for example the canvas Nagasaki (1960).[6]

Around 1968 he made series of figurative drawings. In 1970 he made the sculpture De Kapitein, an allusion to Edy de Wilde as director of the Stedelijk Museum, which was shown in Galerie Kristiaan in Amsterdam. In 1971 he painted large abstract canvases with geometric mandalas.