DICK KET (1902 - 1940).
"Dutch City View", 1928.
Ink drawing on paper.
Informative annotation on the back.
Signed and dated in the lower right-hand corner.
Provenance: Private collection Mallorca.
Size: 27.5 x 23 cm; 39.5 x 45 cm (frame).
Although Ket's first paintings are impressionist in style, he was decisively influenced by the art of Neue Sachlichkeit in 1929 and, from then on, he painted in a magical realist style. His meticulously composed and rendered still lifes feature favourite objects such as bottles, an empty bowl, eggs and musical instruments. Ket juxtaposed these objects in angular arrangements, seen from a high viewpoint, their cast shadows creating emphatic diagonals. These compositions reveal the influence of Cubism filtered through Cassandre's posters, which are frequently depicted in Ket's paintings. Another source of inspiration came from early Dutch painting, which Ket admired for its atmosphere of austere reverence that he called its "intrusive" quality. Ket completed approximately 140 paintings, including forty self-portraits. As a result of his technical experimentation with different formulations and additives to the glaze medium, some of his paintings are not completely dry after six decades. In his self-portraits the progressive symptoms of his physical deterioration are evident. Museums housing works by Dick Ket include the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Arnhem Museum and the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam.