N. Eekman «The candle blower»

Engraving - Nicolas Eekman (1889-1973)
«The candle blower» - Circa 1955

Complete plate (uncut)
Signed lower right
Artist's proof (numbered 2/10) lower left
Complete plate (uncut)

Size engraving: 29,5 X 24,5 cm
Size complete plate: 56,5 X 38,5 cm
Frame size: 61,5 X 52,5 cm

Framing in black and gilded wood
Grey pass
Anti-reflection glass

A painter recognizable at first glance.
A very personal style… My favorite for many years (!)

Nicolas Eeman is present in many museums: Arhnem - Basel - Berlin - Brussels - Budapest - Chicago - Dordrecht Dresden - Eindhoven - Essen - Glasgow - Hanover - Moscow - Mulheim - Munich - Prague - etc.
See biography below

Nicolas Eekman
(Brussels August 9, 1889 - Paris November 13, 1973)
Dutch figurative painter, also known in France, in Belgium and in the Netherlands under the name Nico Eekman.

He is also engraver, draftsman, watercolourist and illustrator. His style is characterized by three major periods: expressionist between 1914 and the late 1920s, realistic Flemish until the early 1950s, then fantastic.

Biography:
Nicolas Eekman was born in Brussels in the house where Victor Hugo, then in exile, undertook to write Les Misérables.

At the age of 18, he gave his first lecture in Brussels devoted to Van Gogh, the unknown, a painter who, in 1907, was still largely unknown to the general public. In 1912 he visited Vincent van Gogh's first exhibition in Cologne, a decisive experience.

After graduating as an architect from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, he is invited by his friend pastor Bart de Ligt to stay in the Netherlands. It was there that thirty years before lived the van Gogh family; Vincent created potato eaters. Until the end of the war, exhibitions are multiplying in the country and Eekman is the subject of many acquisitions by major museums and collectors Dutch.

In 1921, Eekman moved to Paris, and will continue to exhibit in France and abroad. He frequents Dutch artists living in Paris like Fred Klein, Piet Mondrian, Cesar Domela, Georges Vantongerloo and Frans Masereel. He became friends with the gallerist Jeanne Bucher who will expose it in 1928 with Mondrian. This is the only time Mondrian will exhibit his paintings in a gallery in Paris. These two men, whom the vision of art separates, Mondrian, the promoter of abstract art, and Eekman violently against, will remain bound by an unswerving friendship throughout their lives.

In the 1930s, Eekman regularly attended group exhibitions, notably in the United States, and his solo exhibitions were organized throughout Europe. During the inter-war period, Eekman took part in Parisian artistic life, then in the heart of the Montparnasse district and frequented Jean Lurçat, André Lhote, Max Jacob, Moses Kisling, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Paul Signac, Fernand Light, etc.

At the Paris International Exhibition in 1937, Eekman won a gold medal for his painting La pelote bleue, later acquired by the State for the Jeu de Paume museum. At the beginning of the second world war, he is sought after and then takes refuge in Saint-Jean-de Luz where he momentarily signs his works under the pseudonym Ekma.

In 1944, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels organized a very important exhibition of Eekman. In the 1950s and 1960s, exhibitions followed at a steady pace in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland. At the International Exhibition in Dauville in 1956, he received the "Prix du Nu".
In 1961, a large wall panel (2.50 × 1.40 m) was commissioned by Professor H. Griffon on the theme of medicinal plants in the world. This work was executed for the pharmacy of the Parisian terminal of Orly.

Shortly after a major retrospective at the Reflets Gallery in Brussels, Nicolas Eekman died on November 13, 1973 in Paris.

Selective Bibliography
• Paul Fierens, Eekman Monograph, Brussels, 1936.
• Maurice Bedel, Introduction to Album I, Paris, 1943.
• Maurice Fombeure, Introduction to Album II, Paris, 1950.
• Jean-Louis Monod, Eekman , painter, humanist ... and magician, ed. Pierre Cailler, Geneva, 1969.
• Nicolas Eekman, engraving painter, texts by Emmanuel Bréon, Claude Roy and Jean-Louis M. Monod, co-published by Le Sillon and Somogy, 2004.
• Jean-Louis Monod, Nicolas Eekman, in Du surréel to the fantastic, preface by Marcel Schneider, Editions Alain Lefeuvre, Nice, 1980, page 86.
• Dictionary of Illustrators, 1905-1965, under the direction of Marcus Osterwalder, Ides et Calendes, Neuchâtel, 2001, p. 536.

See also the official website of Nicolas Eekman: http://www.nicolaseekman.com