Dick Ket | |
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 Self-portrait | |
| Born | (1902-10-10)October 10, 1902 Den Helder, Netherlands |
| Died | September 15, 1940(1940-09-15) (aged 37) Bennekom, Netherlands |
| Known for | Painting,Magic realism,Still life, Self-portrait |
Dick Ket (October 10, 1902 – September 15, 1940) was a Dutch painter noted for hisstill lifes andself-portraits in a style he referred to as New Realism.[1]
Born inDen Helder, Ket spent his childhood inHoorn and thenEde before attending the Kunstoefening inArnhem from 1922 to 1925. Born with a serious heart defect (believed to betetralogy of Fallot withdextrocardia),[2][3] he was prevented from traveling by debilitating weakness as well as by phobias, and lived secluded in his parents' house inBennekom after 1930. Exposed tomodern art mainly through reproductions, he concentrated on painting still lifes and self-portraits. His health worsened in his last decade, leading to his early death in Bennekom in 1940.
While Ket's earliest paintings areimpressionistic in style, he was influenced decisively by the art of theNeue Sachlichkeit in 1929, and thereafter painted in a style he called New Realism, which has affinities withmagic realism.[1]
His meticulously composed and rendered still lifes feature favorite objects such as bottles, an empty bowl, eggs, and musical instruments. Ket juxtaposed these objects in angular arrangements, seen from a high vantage point, their cast shadows creating emphatic diagonals. These compositions reveal the influence ofcubism as filtered through the posters ofCassandre, which are frequently depicted in Ket’s paintings. Another source of inspiration came fromearly Netherlandish painting, which Ket admired for its atmosphere of austere reverence that he called its quality of "intrusiveness".[1]
Ket completed approximately 140 paintings, including forty self-portraits. As a result of his technical experimentation with different formulations and additives to the glaze medium, some of his paintings are not completely dry after six decades. In his self-portraits the progressive symptoms of his physical deterioration, such ascyanosis andnail clubbing, are apparent.[3]
Museums holding works by Dick Ket include theRijksmuseum in Amsterdam, theMuseum Arnhem, and theMuseum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.
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