Charles Eyck - the Master from Meerssen - - Sold

Description
Magnificent painting of a seated woman, drawn by the very versatile Limburg artist Charles Eyck (1897-1983). Large Format!

Charles EyckCharles Eyck (1897)
architect, sculptor, graphic designer, illustrator, monumental artist (ceramics), glass painter, muralist, painter, draftsman of industrial landscapes, portraits, self-portraits, still lifes, religion, figure representations and animals.

Name variations: Charles Eijck, Charles Hubert Eyck,
Place/date of birth Meerssen 1897-03-24,
Place/date of death Schimmert (Nuth) 1983-08-02,

Course
Academy of Fine Arts (Rotterdam)
National Academy of Fine Arts (Amsterdam)

Meerssen 1897 - 1917
When Charles Eyck was born in Meerssen on 24 March 1897, the fifth in a working-class family of fourteen children, his interests soon turned to culture, reading and drawing.

As a result of an illness - mumps, scarlet fever, typhoid fever and otitis media at the same time - Eyck became deaf and dumb at the age of ten and was therefore unable to finish primary school.
The boy accepts his handicap, which has literally and figuratively been characteristic of his further life and artistry. Later he said about this: 'I wouldn't want to miss my deafness for anything. Every day I enjoy the silence around me.'

Through his drawing teacher Jos Tilmans, teacher and pottery painter, with whom he attended evening drawing school from 1910 to 1915, Eyck entered the Maastricht pottery factory 'De Céramique' in 1911. He decorated cups and saucers there to contribute to the family income.
In 1915 Eyck was a house painter for Jan Wingen in Maastricht and a hobby painter in his spare time.

Rotterdam 1917 - 1918
His cousin Hubert introduced him to Flemish literature and through him Eyck came into contact with the art critic and poet Maria Viola. Through her intervention he went to the deaf-mute institute in Rotterdam in 1916 and simultaneously took lessons at the Academy.

Amsterdam 1918 - 1922
Two years later, under the influence of the painter Willem van Konijnenburg, he went to the National Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam.
During his studies until 1922, A. Derkinderen in particular had a strong influence on him with his new subjects of monumental wall and glass painting. In the twenties, the book list of the Academy shows that the iconographic art of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance was central, with an emphasis on Giotto and Fra Angelico. In that period, the ideals of (Christian) community art were considered to be most fully realized.

Rome 1922 - 1923
In 1922 Eyck won the Prix de Rome with the painting 'The Return of the Prodigal Son'. With the money he won, as he was expected to do, he went on a four-year study trip to France and Italy, where he copied the frescoes and mosaics in the San Vitale in Ravenna by Giotto and Fra Angelico. The painting style of the trecento (1300-1400) and quattrocentro (1400-1500) was now completely etched in his memory, which can be seen frequently in his entire oeuvre.

In Anticoli he met the Swedish painter Karin Meyer, whom he married in Stockholm in 1924.

France 1924 - 1931
Further travels take them to Banyuls-sur-mer, where he sees sculptures by Maillol, Perpignan, where his daughter Anne-Margit is born, and St. Veran. After the money from the Prix de Rome runs out, the family returns to Amsterdam, and Eyck works in Breitner's old studio. In 1927 he gets his first exhibition at the art dealer Van Lier and becomes more and more detached from his academic period. Further travels to France follow with stays in Cagnes-sur-Mer, Clemart, Paris and Fontenay-aux-Roses. It is a poor period.

Success begins to break through in Paris in 1929 when the Salon d'Automne accepts work and, through contacts with J. Pascin, thirty paintings by Eyck are exhibited in Blanche Guillot. Within three days, his works were sold for 400 francs each. There was also interest in this exhibition from the Netherlands and exhibitions followed in Amsterdam and The Hague. In the meantime, Eyck has become acquainted with the work of the French painters Dufy and Utrillo. Their influence on Eyck's work is great. In the same year, Eyckook receives his first commission as a church painter in the Catholic church of St. Vincentius a Paulo in Rumpen (Brunssum). Over the years, commissions follow for the church in Terwinselen, the Antoniuskerk in Heerlen, the Onze Lieve Vrouw van Goeden Raad in Utrecht and the Heilige Theresiakerk in Eindhoven.

Maastricht 1931 - 1932
Zeist 1932 - 1934
Utrecht 1934 - 1937

'The Community'
In the thirties Eyck became involved with 'De Gemeenschap', a group of progressive catholic intellectuals and artists, who published a magazine of the same name. Through the meeting with Albert Kuyle, editorial secretary of De Gemeenschap, in 1928 in Clamart, Eyck became interested in the magazine and the ideas that were propagated.
De Gemeenschap was not an ordinary literary magazine: it paid attention to architecture, film, music, theatre, visual arts and politics. A group of young progressive Catholics gathered around this magazine, who kicked against the Catholic establishment. With a Catholic faith inspiration as a basis, the editors longed for more artistic freedom and more openness, also towards non-Catholics. De Gemeenschap attracted writers, journalists and poets as well as architects, filmmakers and artists, including Henri Jonas, Joep Nicolas, Otto van Rees and Charles Eyck. The meeting place was the large office of the magazine on the Oude Gracht in Utrecht. Eyck and other artists were even able to set up a painting studio there.

This episode was important to Eyck for several reasons. Firstly, he was given the opportunity to indulge his phenomenal talent for drawing by providing numerous illustrations, covers, drawings, vignettes and even literary contributions for the magazine. He also regularly worked on illustrating books published by De Gemeenschap. Secondly, the Utrecht period also provided important personal contacts, from which various commissions resulted. For example, Willem Maas, architect and editor of De Gemeenschap at the time, brought Eyck to Zeist to paint the murals in the Sint Jozefkweekschool, and mediated in other church commissions. And the contact with Bertus Aafjes, whose poetry appeared in De Gemeenschap, developed into a long friendship and collaboration. The highlight of this was the decoration of the Sint-Martinuskerk in Jeantes-La-Ville (France), which was entrusted to Charles Eyck through Aafjes.

Finally, Eyck met artists with kindred views in this circle. Eyck wanted to be a community artist, serving society, on the one hand searching for new forms, on the other hand focused on recognition and acknowledgement of his work. During this period, Eyck also succeeded in breaking through as a leading artist in the Netherlands, and he was asked to paint in the Dutch pavilions at the world exhibitions in Brussels (1935) and Paris (1937) and for commissions for churches, town halls, insurance buildings, banks and schools.

Schimmert (Nuth) 1938 - 1951
In 1938, Eyck and his family settled in the newly built house Ravenbos near Valkenburg, which he designed himself. During the war years, the family continued to live there and offered shelter to people in hiding, such as Willem Sanderberg, the later director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the journalist Fred van Leeuwen. Since he did not want to become a member of the Kulturkammer, he did not receive any major commissions and exchanged paintings and drawings for the necessities of life.

After the Second World War he mainly worked as a stained glass artist in the many churches that were to be rebuilt, but he also made many sculptures and plastics, including resistance monuments.

The way in which he carries out the commission for a 'Coronation Painting' in 1948, on the occasion of the oath-taking of Queen Juliana, earns him much criticism. He has little understanding for the new artistic movements of the fifties and sixties and he strongly opposes them.

Curacao 1952 - 1953
To gain new inspiration he travels to Spain and the Antilles, among other places, and later to France and Greece.

Schimmert (Nuth) 1954 - 1969
In 1955 he was appointed professor at the Jan van Eyck Academy, but after a disagreement with the director about, among other things, housing, he resigned after a year.
In the early sixties, the commissions for painting and glazing churches in the Netherlands came to an end, and thanks to his contact with Aafjes, he began painting the village church of Jeantes-la-Ville in Northern France, which would eventually take a special place in his oeuvre.

Until his death on 2 August 1983 he remained active as a painter and draughtsman, but he had turned his back on the contemporary, modern art world. However, he also continued to write letters to everyone with whom he wanted to exchange ideas. In 1983 Charles Eyck died in his house 'Ravenbos', leaving behind his thoughts: '... Between birth and death lies a vacuum of time, which man must fill to the best of his ability. With my hand I have mainly given meaning to my life, in the hope of creating some beauty and providing some joy to my fellow human beings, whom I loved very much.'


This painting is for sale in Sittard (Limburg). Pick up possible. Other shipping costs in consultation.