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Lot Essay
After graduating in 1976 at the Koninklijke Academie in 's-Hertogenbosch, René Daniëls was immediately acknowledged by the Dutch art scene as a young and upcoming talent who had played a vital role in the revival of figurative painting in the Netherlands. By the mid-1980's he was sought after by galleries across Europe and had significant exhibitions at Galerie Rudolf Zwirner in Cologne, Galerie Joost Declercq in Ghent and Galerie Paul Andriesse in Amsterdam. His international career was launched after his participation in the legendary exhibition Westkunst in 1981 in Cologne, followed by the international Documenta VII in Kassel and Zeitgeist in Berlin. Daniëls' first New York solo exhibition took place in 1984 at the Metro Pictures Gallery; due to its huge success it was followed by a second show in 1985. On this same year Metro Pictures held a retrospective devoted to the artist's works from the late seventies and eighties.
The artist's career was on the rise soon after he gained international recognition for the exhibitions held the Metro Pictures Gallery in the 1980s, and was referred to by the critics as the "Top Young Dutchman". Daniëls' stylistic development at this period was influenced by the punk generation; the new wave and no wave of underground culture of the 1970s and 1980s which surfaced across Europe. The emotions are reflected in his use of expressionistic brushstrokes, which he combined with a punchy palette and sketchy punk-influenced graphics that were inspired by the music of the Sex Pistols as well as the colour-washed canvases of Sigmar Polke. In 1987, at the age of thirty-seven, the artist suffered a brain aneurysm which marked the end of a fundamental resurgence of figurative painting in the canon of Dutch art history. Daniëls' valuable artistic contribution and influence on a younger generation of artists has been acknowledged by travelling retrospectives held in 1998 and 2012, both of which included the present work. As Martin Herbert states in his article on Daniëls' for Frieze Magazine (136, January-February 2011): 'Peter Doig's game attempt at summarizing Daniëls' art: 'His paintings are like some dreams.' Michael Raedecker's: 'A mental painter of reduced and archetypal images.''
'It always comes down to painting', Daniëls once said, a statement that resonates with some dissonance across a body of work permeated through and through with writing, word games, literary references, visual puns, and allusions to art movements, institutions, and mass media. Daniëls' paintings are poetic, suggestive and ambiguous. The essence of his work lies in the incorporation of image with word and of image with idea. Although identified as a leading figure in the development of a new Dutch art, he had always been apprehensive of art historians, theorists and critics. One can easily encounter ironic references to the mechanisms of the art world which frequently appear in the titles of his works and in the playful symbolism of their visual repertory. Through the use of references, double meanings and ambiguity in his works, Daniëls gains a prestigious place amongst the internationally acclaimed French-Belgium tradition of Mallarmé, Apollinaire, Magritte, Picabia, Duchamp and Broodthaers.
According to Daniëls, art is all about what is in the mind of the artist. At first he starts with one idea that he uses as a framework and guidance for his painting and subsequently develops it into a conglomeration of ideas that always covers many facets in life. Daniëls' paintings evoke a multiplicity of hidden meanings and symbolisms which are subject to a variety of interpretations. At the core of his oeuvre lies his primal intention in defining the connections between the arts and its rich history, literature and everyday life.
In 1984 Daniëls painted the monumental Apollinaire which consists of dynamic and expressionistic lines and vibrant colours. The colours are chosen by automatism, a reoccurring motif throughout his oeuvre. The works is an ode to the French art critic and poet Guillaime Apollinaire (1880-1918), who is considered as one of the forefathers of Surrealism and the mind behind the creation of the figurative poem. Apollinaire, an avant-garde artist and a master in visual poetry and word paintings, was a source of inspiration for the artist. Et Moi Aussi Je Suis Peintre, a book containing Apollinaire's calligrammes- poems in which words are arranged in order to create visual images- served as a constant reference and influence to Daniëls' works, who in return decontextualized and re-interpreted the innumerous hidden motifs and themes in his paintings conveying a distinct significance. The vertical dark areas on both sides of the figure in Apollinaire can be read, according to Philip Peter, as the letter 'I'. They are both fighting for the 'point' in the middle, which is symbolized by the bowler hat. This theme found its origin in a work produced two years earlier: Twee I's strijden om een punt (Two I's fighting for a dot). This battle will be won by one element and will be lost by the other element. Early in his career Daniëls said to Anna Tilroe: 'I first need a framework, a hand-out to paint. That is the idea and from there I play until it becomes an agglomerate of ideas. These always cover many facets of life' (René Daniëls quoted in: Haagsepost, 26 March 1983 pp. 80-83).
The artist's career was on the rise soon after he gained international recognition for the exhibitions held the Metro Pictures Gallery in the 1980s, and was referred to by the critics as the "Top Young Dutchman". Daniëls' stylistic development at this period was influenced by the punk generation; the new wave and no wave of underground culture of the 1970s and 1980s which surfaced across Europe. The emotions are reflected in his use of expressionistic brushstrokes, which he combined with a punchy palette and sketchy punk-influenced graphics that were inspired by the music of the Sex Pistols as well as the colour-washed canvases of Sigmar Polke. In 1987, at the age of thirty-seven, the artist suffered a brain aneurysm which marked the end of a fundamental resurgence of figurative painting in the canon of Dutch art history. Daniëls' valuable artistic contribution and influence on a younger generation of artists has been acknowledged by travelling retrospectives held in 1998 and 2012, both of which included the present work. As Martin Herbert states in his article on Daniëls' for Frieze Magazine (136, January-February 2011): 'Peter Doig's game attempt at summarizing Daniëls' art: 'His paintings are like some dreams.' Michael Raedecker's: 'A mental painter of reduced and archetypal images.''
'It always comes down to painting', Daniëls once said, a statement that resonates with some dissonance across a body of work permeated through and through with writing, word games, literary references, visual puns, and allusions to art movements, institutions, and mass media. Daniëls' paintings are poetic, suggestive and ambiguous. The essence of his work lies in the incorporation of image with word and of image with idea. Although identified as a leading figure in the development of a new Dutch art, he had always been apprehensive of art historians, theorists and critics. One can easily encounter ironic references to the mechanisms of the art world which frequently appear in the titles of his works and in the playful symbolism of their visual repertory. Through the use of references, double meanings and ambiguity in his works, Daniëls gains a prestigious place amongst the internationally acclaimed French-Belgium tradition of Mallarmé, Apollinaire, Magritte, Picabia, Duchamp and Broodthaers.
According to Daniëls, art is all about what is in the mind of the artist. At first he starts with one idea that he uses as a framework and guidance for his painting and subsequently develops it into a conglomeration of ideas that always covers many facets in life. Daniëls' paintings evoke a multiplicity of hidden meanings and symbolisms which are subject to a variety of interpretations. At the core of his oeuvre lies his primal intention in defining the connections between the arts and its rich history, literature and everyday life.
In 1984 Daniëls painted the monumental Apollinaire which consists of dynamic and expressionistic lines and vibrant colours. The colours are chosen by automatism, a reoccurring motif throughout his oeuvre. The works is an ode to the French art critic and poet Guillaime Apollinaire (1880-1918), who is considered as one of the forefathers of Surrealism and the mind behind the creation of the figurative poem. Apollinaire, an avant-garde artist and a master in visual poetry and word paintings, was a source of inspiration for the artist. Et Moi Aussi Je Suis Peintre, a book containing Apollinaire's calligrammes- poems in which words are arranged in order to create visual images- served as a constant reference and influence to Daniëls' works, who in return decontextualized and re-interpreted the innumerous hidden motifs and themes in his paintings conveying a distinct significance. The vertical dark areas on both sides of the figure in Apollinaire can be read, according to Philip Peter, as the letter 'I'. They are both fighting for the 'point' in the middle, which is symbolized by the bowler hat. This theme found its origin in a work produced two years earlier: Twee I's strijden om een punt (Two I's fighting for a dot). This battle will be won by one element and will be lost by the other element. Early in his career Daniëls said to Anna Tilroe: 'I first need a framework, a hand-out to paint. That is the idea and from there I play until it becomes an agglomerate of ideas. These always cover many facets of life' (René Daniëls quoted in: Haagsepost, 26 March 1983 pp. 80-83).