The Musée des Beaux Arts in Lyon is an extremely active one. The curator Sylvie Ramond manages to provide very different exhibitions, all put of them put together with a painstaking research and a real “eye” as to the hanging. She has alternated between the big blockbuster shows and showing the public some little-known or almost forgotten artists, which always makes it a pleasure to visit the magnificent Palais Saint Pierre, at the heart of Lyon.This season’s offering fully lives up to these high expectations: entitled “Deux peintres: un nom” we have here a long overdue exhibition devoted to the Van Velde brothers. Major players in their times, they have been somewhat ignored by the general public for too long.
There was a particular poignancy for me in seeing the show as I had first heard of the Van Veldes through Sam Beckett – he was close to both of them and indeed wrote the first preface for their exhibition at Peggy Guggenheim’s in London in 1938, and supported them for several years. Indeed, in the Lyonnais show there is a copy of Beckett’s text about the brothers in “Cahiers d’art” in 1946 – it was the best and most influential art magazine of the time. Beckett wrote with great perceptiveness and feeling about the fundamental stylistic differences between the two brothers’ approach to their work. As the years went by, Beckett lost his enthusiasm for Geer’s work, which he seemed to find too studied. However, he continued to admire Bram’s work which had grown increasingly abstract and he praised it in 1949 in “Three Dialogues” - his best known and most often quoted piece on painting. It was published in Georges Duthuit’s magazine “transition”, and was based on conversations Beckett had with Duthuit ( who was Matisse’s son in law) about Van Velde and other major figures of the time. In discussing Bram’s paintings, Beckett seemed to point to his own predicament as a writer: the effort to express the inexpressible:” Van Velde … is the first to admit that to be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail, that failure is his world…
”But what of the show itself: there is a very broad range of works on display, including drawings and sketches as well as a great number of important paintings. Born in Holland, Bram in 1898 and Geer two years later, they were mostly brought up by their mother in very straitened circumstances. Early on they were apprenticed to a painting/decorating firm Kramers, where they learned the basic painting and drawing techniques The Kramers family remained staunch supporters and steadfastly looked after them financially until the recession in 1929. Thanks to this patronage, both brothers were free to travel, more precisely to Paris in 1925 to visit the Great Exhibition and they decided to settle permanently in France in 1926. there were other sojourns in Majorca, Algeria and the south of France but they were chiefly based in and around Paris until their deaths (Geer in 1977 and Bram in1981).
The brothers were quite naturally much impressed and influenced by expressionism, then the leading movement of the European avant-garde. They very early decided that painting was to be their way of life and no sacrifices were too great, no difficulties could not be overcome in order to achieve their aim: i.e. to live by and for their art. It was not always easy and, as time went on, they each found their own “language”. Bram’s paintings became ever more colorful and abstract, whereas Geer’s was more inward looking , more reflective, perhaps even spiritual. The former was perhaps more successful than the second but in the long run, it appears that their works complement each other – they are in no way competing with one another. As usual in this museum, the exhibition is excellently laid out and allows one to wander at will through both artists’ oeuvre, allowing time for reflection before comparing them to another. Bram’s more flamboyant colors attract at first glance but Geer’s more reserved palette conveys a feeling of great delicacy and emotion.Well worth visiting the next time you are in Lyon.
Bram et Geer van Velde | Deux frères, un nom
Musée des Beaux-Arts
20 place des Terreaux,
69001 Lyon
Until July 19, 2010
