Michel van Overbeeke - Large color etching "Heads or Tails" made in a limited (100) edition

• Artist: Michel van Overbeeke (1942 - 2024)
• Presentation: Heads or Tails
• Sheet size: 65 x 49cm image size: 40 x 35cm.
• Signed: in pencil
• Numbered: 76/80
• Date: 1980
• Condition: in very good condition

Michel van Overbeeke (The Hague, 1942 - 2024)
Van Overbeeke grows up in a family dragging itself through bitter poverty. His childhood can therefore hardly be called carefree and happy. His parents are divorced around the time Michel is born, and his father will remarry three times. He will not meet his mother until he is fourteen. Six years after his birth, the family (with stepmother Popje) ends up in the center of Haarlem, where his father rents out a small room on the attic floor as a side income to an amateur drawing club: 'De Vrije Kunstkring'. Here, the foundation is laid for Michel's future career as an artist. When he is caught by his father peeking at the Kunstkring's nude model, his father punishes him by forcing him to participate in the drawing sessions. With club member Otto van der Peet as a source of inspiration, the seed for his artistry is sown! After a largely unsuccessful period at the Haarlem Lyceum, he manages to get permission from his father to study at the Graphic School Amsterdam. He passes the entrance exam 'Cum Laude' and feels completely at home there. Even though it is not an Academy but more of a traditional school education. Later, he would say that he is glad he did not end up at the Academy. As it was, he was given the opportunity sooner to develop his own distinct style in his visual art, with a unique visual language that evolved parallel to his spiritual experiences. At nineteen, Van Overbeeke graduates as the best student of his year, seven months after the death of his father and in the year his son Manuel is born. The first few years are a struggle, and the young Van Overbeeke family keeps themselves afloat with odd jobs and donations. At the recommendation of the then director of modern art at the Frans Hals Museum, he enters the Visual Arts Scheme (BKR) at the age of 23, giving him the freedom from then on to devote himself to his artistic career. After just three years, he is able to bid farewell to the BKR. He sells out an entire exhibition in Amsterdam, earning him five thousand guilders. A formidable sum for 1969! The future looks bright for him! A successful period begins for van Overbeeke. His work sells very well, and his wife Christhilde takes care of the business side of his artistic career. This means that the two are constantly together, and that starts to cause friction. After fifteen years of marriage, they separate. Michel travels to India and immerses himself there in philosophy, yoga culture, and religion. He has always incorporated religious symbols into his art and will never let go of that. All religions find a place in his work in their own way. In addition, eroticism also occupies an important place. Not to provoke, but to allow his feelings to be recognized. In his work, the symbols of woman, eroticism, and religion vie for their own place in his world of expression. Van Overbeeke: "Eroticism remains a difficult subject in public opinion. Inside, everyone is fully on board with it, but on the outside, no one is allowed to notice anything. For me, it is important." Recognition has come, and his work is also being shown internationally at exhibitions and shows all over the world: Brussels, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Paris, Buffalo, Luxembourg, Ljubljana... In recent years, Van Overbeeke has also further developed his artistry and has increasingly (successfully) focused on glass art.