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extended until 03.11. | #2139ARTatBerlin | Galerie Brockstedt presents from 14th September 2018 the solo exhibition Between De Stijl and Bauhaus by the painter Lou Loeber (1894-1983).
Lou Loeber (Louise Maria (Lou) Loeber) was born on May 3, 1894 in Amsterdam. In 1901 her parents moved to Blaricum N.H., where she still lives today. Lou Loeber will be 80 years old next year. At the age of 19 she started to paint. Her own style she found in the early 20s. Lou Loeber comes from a good middle-class background and was – from this origin – from a very young age a very modern man, who took lively part in all intellectual currents of this time. She was already a socialist in the mid-20s and became a member of the “socialist kunstenaarskring” in 1927 when it was founded. Since then she is an active pacifist. From an early age, the young artist was interested in the trends in modern art of her day – for Cubism, the Blue Rider and the Bauhaus. During a visit to Dessau in 1927, the pictures Dessau I and II emerged. Early on she had read the writings of Kandinsky “The spiritual in art” and “point, line to surface”. However, the artist found her spiritual home in the Dutch Stijl group of artists, Mondrian, van Doesburg and Bart van der Leck, as well as the architects Oud and Rietveld, who are closely related to this group. For Lou Loeber, however, in contrast to many Stijl artists, the subject of the pictorial theme was the focus. Only Bart van der Leck – from the group of Stijl artists – finds a parallel to this. Abstraction is an integral part of the art of all time. It can be traced back from the 14th to the end of the 20th century. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century that abstraction became the primary theme of art. It becomes a problem “par excellence”. One could almost speak of the collapse of a mathematical element in the otherwise primarily intuitively determined pictorial art. Around 1950, this development reaches the point where abstraction is almost ad absurdum. Good examples are artists like Yves Klein and Lucio Fontana. Surely you have one last artistic statement, but have now come to a point where there is no further step, and what would have led to the destruction – if the young artists had followed them – the panel painting. It is not the place and the space to put the boundaries of abstraction up for discussion – it would be almost identical to the issue of the limits of human freedom in general. The artist Lou Loeber, who with the greatest abstraction preserved an object reference in her pictures and whose artistic conception arose half a century ago, stimulates us to this train of thought.
Amsterdam, February 1973 – Dr. C. Richartz
Rotslandschap Portugal 1932 57,2 x 40,8 cm Öl auf Malpappe
1894
Louise Maria (Lou) was born on 3 May in Amsterdam, the eldest of seven children of paper manufacturer Gerhard Loeber (1865-1950) and his wife Charlotte nee Landré (1869-1936). She grows up in a largely bourgeois environment in a liberal Protestant parental home and has a carefree youth together with her siblings.
1901
Moved to Blaricum, North Holland, in the villa built by the father “Zonnenhoef” on the grounds of the estate “Jagtlust” the grandparents Landré. The father buys works of art and gets acquainted with the open-air artists from the nearby artist village Laren. He designs wallpapers, ceiling paintings and stained glass windows. Through studio visits and exhibitions Lou develops her own artistic ambitions. Her sisters Miep and Lot play the piano, the brother Jan Cello, Lou plays the violin.
1913-1915
Painting lessons with August LeGras and Co Breman, The father builds her a studio.
1915-1918
Recording at the Rijksacademie voor Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam; Studies with Prof. Carel Dake. She lives in the girls’ pension of the socially engaged Suze Bauer and is interested in social ideas. In the summer months she takes lessons from the Belgian G. van Haecht.
1918
At the feast of May 1, she enthuses the speech of the socialist A. B. Kleerekoper.
1919
Classes with Hans van Santen (1882-1967) and Jan Sluijters (1881-1957). The acquaintance with the writer and Cubist Toon Verhoef (1893-1979) brings her into contact with Cubism and De Stijl. In the following years she developed her strict forms and primary color palette. She seeks a link between modern art and socialism and selects topics from the world of industry and the world of work. She reads socialist and art theory texts.
1922-1926
Since 1922 Loeber makes several versions of one and the same motif in order to keep the price as low as possible. From June to September 1922 she is in Thuringia, in 1924 in Spain and Portugal; In 1923 and 1926 she is on holiday in Belgium. She is interested in Cubism, the Blue Rider and the Bauhaus.
Landschap Thüringen 1922 46,3 x 61,3 cm Öl auf Malpappe
Hofje 1923 45 x 60,5 cm Öl auf Leinwand
De Brug (Portugal) 1925 69,8 x 70,2 cm Öl auf Malpappe
Grintgraver II, 1928 38,4 x 42,5 cm Öl auf Malpappe
o. T. (Lampe + Ofen) 1928 46,4 x 41,8 cm Gouache auf Papier
Vernissage: Friday, 14th September 2018, 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Exhibition period: Friday, 14th September – Saturday, 3rd November 2018 – extended until 20 November 2018!
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Image caption: Landschap Thüringen 1922 46,3 x 61,3 cm Öl auf Malpappe
