Kees Verwey - Still life

Kees Verwey (1900-1995)
Still life
1979
Watercolor on paper
54 x 40 cm
signed lower left, dated lower right

provenance:
-direct from the artist
-Jo Langen (Spijk printing house)
-Private collection, NL

Kees Verwey (Amsterdam, 20 April 1900 – Haarlem, 23 July 1995) was a Dutch painter, watercolourist and draftsman. He was the older brother of writer and engineer Willem Verwey (pseudonym Egbert Eewijck) and a cousin of the poet and man of letters Albert Verwey and of Hendrik Petrus Berlage, both of whom were his uncles.[1] He was the uncle of Jacqueline de Savornin Lohman.

Verwey studied from 1918 to 1919 at the School for Arts and Crafts in Haarlem and from 1925 to 1926 at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. He was a student of Henri Boot, the founder of the Haarlem School, and of Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita and Johannes Hendricus Jurres. He created (flower) still lifes, portraits, watercolors, and studio pieces, using his own studio on the Spaarne River in Haarlem as a backdrop. He remained active well into old age. His style stems from Impressionism. Influences from Breitner and Seurat's Divisionism led him to a personal synthesis of Impressionism and Colorism.

He was a member of the Haarlem artists' society "Kunst Zij Ons Doel" (Art Our Goal), the Kennemer Artists' Circle, and the Dutch Watercolorists' Circle. In 1951, he married Jeanne Tilbusscher, a teacher at the Haarlem Domestic Science and Industry School. He became known when his work was exhibited alongside that of other Haarlem artists such as Hendrik van den Eijnde in the newly renovated modern art gallery behind the Frans Hals Museum.

In 1961, his work was honored with the Rembrandt Prize. In the late 1970s, he had an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. In 1985, 1990, and 1993, he had exhibitions in Haarlem. In 1989 and 2019[2], his work was on display at the Dordrechts Museum, and in 1990 at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. His work is in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Singer Museum in Laren, and the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, among others. His students included Frans Funke Küpper and Henk Fonville.

In 1984, he bequeathed his estate to the municipality of Haarlem, but when the municipality hesitated to find a suitable home, he withdrew this offer and placed his work with the Kees Verwey Foundation, of which he himself was the chairman. This foundation financed the conversion of the former gentlemen's club Trou moet Blycken into a suitable exhibition space. Since then, his oeuvre, consisting of thousands of paintings, watercolors, and drawings, has been presented in the Verweyhal, part of Museum De Hallen and the Frans Hals Museum. The Kees Verwey Foundation collaborates with the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten and has offered an annual scholarship to a budding artist since 2005.[3]