Willem van den Berg - Typical WvdB lithograph "Urk Fishermen" signed in pencil - Sold

• Artist: Willem van den Berg (1886-1970)
• Title: Urk fishermen
• Year: 1930
• Passe-partout dimensions: 33cm x 23cm (framed dimensions: 46cm x 36cm)
• Signed: Yes (lower left)
• Medium: lithography
• Framed: in passepartout
• Condition: In good condition.

Van den Berg received his first drawing lessons from his father, Andries van den Berg (1852-1944). He subsequently studied at the Hague Academy and obtained his MO (Motor Education) certificate in 1904. A key moment in his life was his meeting in 1912 with Willem van Konijnenburg, who would have a profound influence on him. Van Konijnenburg was a charismatic personality with strong views on art, which strongly resonated with Van den Berg.

Partly because he occasionally worked on commissions from Van Konijnenburg, Van den Berg's style of painting gradually evolved from a loose Hague School-like approach to a more elaborate, stylised way of designing, which in his figure pieces sometimes tends slightly towards the caricatural.

In 1938, Van den Berg was appointed professor at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, of which he also became director in 1940. He managed to steer the academy through the Second World War without too many problems. He retired in 1953.
Van den Berg was a versatile artist who, besides figure paintings—mostly scenes from farm and fishing life, but also occasionally biblical scenes—and many portraits, also painted animal scenes, landscapes, cityscapes and village views, and still lifes. He also regularly created graphic works in various techniques and illustrated several books.

He was also a tireless draftsman, always keeping a sketchbook at the ready and constantly capturing motifs from his immediate surroundings. He produced a vast number of sketches of all sorts of subjects, including numerous informal portraits of colleagues and scenes from the artist's life. He drew many of these during gatherings at Arti et Amicitiae and Pulchri Studio, of which he was a member from 1910 and 1921 respectively.