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Lot Essay
‘As I told you,’ Eugène Brands (1913-2002) wrote in a grateful letter to the buyer of Wandelen (Promenade in the Village) in 1952, ‘I’m very honored that you purchased the “Promenade”, but don’t be afraid: I for myself, I keep my head cool and hold both of my legs on the bottom of my studio, painting farther and still going strong’ (E. Brands to Buyer, 30 December 1952, Private Collection).
Brands was referring to the large, festively-stockinged feet which appear to dangle from the top-right corner of Promenade. To either side and above and below, playfully animate houses, sailboats, and other forms float in Brands’ otherworldly atmosphere. In the very centre, a figure with an outstretched hand, up-ended legs, and a body resembling a sailboat below falls joyfully through the stratosphere of houses towards the row of homes on the edge of a body of water. Every form Brands has created offers its viewer a surprise: boats sailing through land and air, upside-down houses near the sun, hands emerging from ship bows, and chimneys and roofs taking the form of pumpkin stems or other organic shapes.
Brands, a native of Amsterdam, worked in advertising for several months after completing his studies in the same field before deciding to become an artist. In 1948, he joined the Experimental Group in Holland (Experimentele groep in Holland), together with what would become the founding members of CoBrA: Constant and Jan Nieuwenhuijs, Asger Jorn, Karel Appel, Corneille, Theo Wolvecamp and Anton Rooskens. Brands was a relative latecomer to the experimental artist’s circle and left earlier than the rest as well, in 1950, one year before the dissolution of CoBrA as a group. He committed himself thereafter to developing himself further as an independent artist and exploring what he himself described as the ‘world of the child’: a realm of creativity admired by most other CoBrA artists.
Completed one year after his departure from the stylistically-revolutionary group, Brands’ Wandelen renders to life the very world to which they had always aspired. It is quintessential CoBrA, and was recognised as such at the time of its conception, being displayed the very next year at an international exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was here that the father of the present owner set his eyes on the painting for the first time and decided to purchase it. In his letter to the buyer written shortly thereafter, Brands wrote, ‘I hope that you will hold a permanent satisfaction in “our” spiritual “Promenade in the Village”, cause I now, no longer can say: “in my Promenade” alone….’ (Brands, Letter to Buyer, 30 December 1952).
Wandelen represents not only a core value of the CoBrA group, but also marks a pivotal moment in the career of Brands himself, who, as recently as 1949, had been composing abstract paintings with the same vibrant and aggressive bravado as Karel Appel, who said of his own style, ‘if I paint like a barbarian, it’s because we live in barbarous times’ (K. Appel, quoted in Documentary De Werkelijkheid van Karel Appel by Jan Vrijman, 1962). The dramatic shift from Brands’ dramatic, contrasting paintings from 1949 to his ebullient, dreamlike scenescapes two years later is encapsulated by the current work. With its dimmed palette selectively embellished by black, white, green and red, Brands succeeds in evoking a feeling of jubilance within a softened environment: ‘the world of the child’, in oil on canvas.
Brands was referring to the large, festively-stockinged feet which appear to dangle from the top-right corner of Promenade. To either side and above and below, playfully animate houses, sailboats, and other forms float in Brands’ otherworldly atmosphere. In the very centre, a figure with an outstretched hand, up-ended legs, and a body resembling a sailboat below falls joyfully through the stratosphere of houses towards the row of homes on the edge of a body of water. Every form Brands has created offers its viewer a surprise: boats sailing through land and air, upside-down houses near the sun, hands emerging from ship bows, and chimneys and roofs taking the form of pumpkin stems or other organic shapes.
Brands, a native of Amsterdam, worked in advertising for several months after completing his studies in the same field before deciding to become an artist. In 1948, he joined the Experimental Group in Holland (Experimentele groep in Holland), together with what would become the founding members of CoBrA: Constant and Jan Nieuwenhuijs, Asger Jorn, Karel Appel, Corneille, Theo Wolvecamp and Anton Rooskens. Brands was a relative latecomer to the experimental artist’s circle and left earlier than the rest as well, in 1950, one year before the dissolution of CoBrA as a group. He committed himself thereafter to developing himself further as an independent artist and exploring what he himself described as the ‘world of the child’: a realm of creativity admired by most other CoBrA artists.
Completed one year after his departure from the stylistically-revolutionary group, Brands’ Wandelen renders to life the very world to which they had always aspired. It is quintessential CoBrA, and was recognised as such at the time of its conception, being displayed the very next year at an international exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was here that the father of the present owner set his eyes on the painting for the first time and decided to purchase it. In his letter to the buyer written shortly thereafter, Brands wrote, ‘I hope that you will hold a permanent satisfaction in “our” spiritual “Promenade in the Village”, cause I now, no longer can say: “in my Promenade” alone….’ (Brands, Letter to Buyer, 30 December 1952).
Wandelen represents not only a core value of the CoBrA group, but also marks a pivotal moment in the career of Brands himself, who, as recently as 1949, had been composing abstract paintings with the same vibrant and aggressive bravado as Karel Appel, who said of his own style, ‘if I paint like a barbarian, it’s because we live in barbarous times’ (K. Appel, quoted in Documentary De Werkelijkheid van Karel Appel by Jan Vrijman, 1962). The dramatic shift from Brands’ dramatic, contrasting paintings from 1949 to his ebullient, dreamlike scenescapes two years later is encapsulated by the current work. With its dimmed palette selectively embellished by black, white, green and red, Brands succeeds in evoking a feeling of jubilance within a softened environment: ‘the world of the child’, in oil on canvas.