The Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem Celebrates Roger Raveel's 90th Birthday

Written by Candice Rédacteur Wednesday, 16 November 2011 00:02

Arnhem, Netherlands.- "In 500 years they will record how important I have been. Art history moves in cycles of about 500 years. The first peak was the Van Eycks. The second peak was Roger Raveel. The Flemish artist Roger Raveel (Machelen-aan-de-Leie 1921) became a central figure in modern art from around 1950 and is one of the greatest living Belgian artists. This year, Raveel turned the venerable age of 90. In celebration of his birthday, the Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem will present a large retrospective exhibition, "Roger Raveel: Looking Back", with a representative selection of 120 paintings and drawings from over 70 years. The exhibition will be on view through January 8th 2012. Around 1950, Raveel developed his 'New Vision', known as 'New Figuration' in the Netherlands. In contrast to most modern art immediately after the war, from the very beginning Raveel created paintings and drawings representing things that he borrowed from his immediate environment. The village where he was born, and where he still lives and works, Machelen-aan-de-Leie, has remained an important source of inspiration for his work. Over time, the 'things around him' acquired cosmic significance in his work so that originally figurative elements gradually developed into more abstract forms.

Many of his pieces are assemblages which can include living material. For instance, the exhibition features the 1965 triptych "The Awfully Beautiful Life" which includes a bird cage with live canaries. In terms of his interest in images from everyday life, Raveel shows an affinity with American artists like Robert Rauschenberg, but he also draws on the images and styles of earlier artists; the Van Eyck brothers, Giotto, Vincent Van Gogh, Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich were significant influences on Raveel's New Vision. Although Raveel has inspired artists like Raoul De Keyzer, Reinier Lucassen and Hannes Postma, his work is difficult to categorize; he is, in fact, unique. Raveel met with more success in the Netherlands, perhaps, than in his home country. He first displayed his work in the Netherlands in 1965 in an exhibition at the Espace Gallery in Amsterdam, which would remain the most important place for sales of his work until the death of gallery owner Eva Bendien in 2000. This led directly to the acquisition of diverse works of Raveel by public and private Dutch collections. The Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem, for instance, owns a collection of works by this Belgian master, including the monumental key piece the 1978 painting "Parade in Machelen-aan-de-Leie". For this exhibition works have been borrowed from The Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage (Collectie Nederland) and a number of public and private Belgian collections, of which the Raveelmuseum in Machelen-aan-de-Leie is the most important.


The Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem (The Arnhem Museum of Modern Art) is located at the site of a former gentlemen's club, created for the sugar planters who were repatriated from India. The club closed in 1920 and the building became the Gemeentemuseum. Over time much has changed in the building, a new wing, built by Eschauzier, was completed in 1956 and a more recent extension was added, designed by Hubert January Henket. This created a space for shops, cafes and museum entrance with an optimal view of the sculpture and the Rhine river. The museum has three special exhibition spaces, the Dome Room, the former ballroom of the club, the Rhine Hall, in the Eschauzier wing, and the Garden Room. The basis of the museum's collection is the legacy of Alexander Verhuell. In 1897 he bequeathed almost his entire estate, including his collection of paintings, drawings, prints and crafts, to the city of Arnhem. From this beginning, the collection has expanded and by the 1990's had become so large that it had to be split, the archeology, history, topographical works and crafts moving to the Historical Museum, housed in a magnificent 18th-century merchant's house in the Arnhem area in 1996. Highlights of the museum's colleciton include works of the magical realists, Pyke Koch's "Street Women", a jewelry collection that includes unique pieces by Gijs Bakker and Emmy van Leersum and a fascinating sculpture garden with a magnificent view over the Rhine. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.mmkarnhem.nl

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