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120 Main Street, Upton MA 01568-6193

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Last updated: 6/23/2019
Home / Gallery Tour 1 / Womanshow 2006 / Gallery Tour 2 / Artists
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Bram Van Velde (Dutch, 1895-1981): Original Prints II

Bram van Velde / VanVelde2 / VanVelde3

Pierre Alechinsky / Karel Appel / Corneille / Henry Heerup / Asger Jorn / Bengt Lindstrom / Lucebert
Carl-Henning Pederson / Antonio Saura
General Bibliography:
Samuel Beckett et al, ] Bram Van Velde (NY: Grove Press, 1960); Guy le Prat, Bram van Velde, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre de peinture (Pars, Turin, NY: Harry N. Abrams, 1961; André de Bouchet, Bram van Velde (St. Paul-de-Vence: Fondation Maeght, 1973), Centre Georges Pompidou, Bram van Velde (Paris SPADEM/Eds. Center Pompidou, 1989); Charles Juliet, Rencontres avec Bram van Velde (Paris: Fata Morgana, 1980); Charles Juliet, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde , trans. Janey Tucker, Morgaine Reinl, Aude Jeanson, Tracy Cooke, & Axel Nesme, Champaign IL, Dalkey Archive Edition, 2005); Jean-Hubert Martin, ed. Bram van Velde (Paris: Éditions du Centre Pompidou, 1989); Franz Meyer, Bram van Velde (Zurich: Maeght Zurich, 1976); Musée National d'Art Moderne, Bram van Velde (Paris: Musée National d'Art Moderne, 1971); Yves Peyré, Bram van Velde (Paris: Daniel Lelong Editeur, 1984: Repères 15); Georgina Oliver, Bram van Velde (Copenhagen: Borgen, 1983); Jacques Putnam and Charles Juliet, Bram van Velde (Paris: Maeght Editeur, 1975: this is a wonderful, highly-illustrated picture book with extensive text and many illustrations and bibliography); Bram Van Velde, Bram van Velde: Archives de l'art contemporain (Paris: Musée d'art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, 1970); Bram Van Velde, Bram van Velde: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings (NY: Abrams, 1961); Bram Van Velde et al., Bram van Velde (Paris: Beaux Arts, 1989); .

Prints: Bram van Velde made 413 prints—almost all of them lithograph—of which 10 were made between 1923 and 1955 and the rest between 1959 and his death in 1981. It would seem that for an artist who painted remarkably slowly, prints offered him a new way to work out his ideas and to present himself to the world. As a Robert C. Morgan wrote in his review of van Velde's 1983 show at the Lefebre Gallery in NY City, "Van Velde's lithographs . . .  hold forth in a way that is more sinewy, cerebral and incongruous than the major Abstract Expressionists. Indeed, it is these qualities, along with his lack of stylistic pretension and his clear indifference to notions of formal cohesion, that are in large part responsible for the 'underground' nature of his reputation. Whereas de Kooning, for all his obvious fluidity, generally relies on the gradual attenuation of bold gesture to achieve formal resolution, van Velde has no comparable apparatus. Works like Le Bonheur de Matisse (1981) [unfortunately reproduced upside down on p. 177, but available to be seen correctly here] show the startling degree to which each of van Velde's gestures remains independent of the others. What's more, of course, is that in lithography each of the colors requires a separate plate, and the final composition is the product of their repeated layering. In van Velde's case, the medium thus adds to the consciously indeterminate appearance of the shapes, which collide and intertwine in weird configurations, never quite matching one another. They neither float in the manner of Gorky's shapes, nor ever entirely hold their ground. The surface shifts continuously, confounding our conceptions both of form and of composition" (Art in America, September 1983, pp. 175-76).

There is a 3-volume catalogue raisonné of Bram van Velde's lithographs edited by Charles Juliet & Georges Duthuit, Bram van Velde Lithographies (Paris: Maeght Editeur, 1993); Bram Van Velde, Les lithographies, 1923-1973 (Paris: Yves Riviere editeur, 1973) Bram Van Velde, Les lithographies II, 1974-1978 (Genève: Musée d'art et d'histoire, 1979); Bram Van Velde, Les lithographies III, 1979-1981 (Genève: Musée d'art et d'histoire, 1984). There is also a very much more affordable one-volume selection which prints 55 of the color lithographs in color, unlike the three-volume catalogue raisonné, where almost all of them are reproduced in black and white. See Charles Juliet and Georges Duthuit, Bram van Velde Lithographies (Paris: Maeght Editeur, 1993),

For an introduction to Bram van Velde, please go to Bram van Velde.
Untitled (BvV 258). Original 4-color lithograph, 1977. 100 signed and numbered impressions on Arches, of which ours is n. 52/100. Image size: 341x567mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
En Dedans / Within (BvV 280). Original 5-color lithograph, 1977. 100 signed and numbered impression on Arches, of which ours is n. 6/100. Illustrated Bram van Velde Lithographies, p. 70. Image size: 759x536mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
L'attrait / The Attraction (BvV 317) . Original 9-color lithograph, 1978. 100 signed and numbered impressions on Arches printed at Mourlot Imprimerie. Our's ia an artist's proof annotated "e.a." lower left. A very good impression with bright colors of this large work. Image size: 778x520mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Untitled (BvV 328) . Original color lithograph, 1979. 150 signed and numbered impressions on wove paper. Ours is an artist's proof annotated "e.a." (epreuve d'artiste) and signed in pencil. Image size: 107x215mm. Price: SOLD.
Braises / Embers (BvV 334). Original 6-color lithograph, 1980. 100 signed and numbered impressions, of which ours is n. 21/100. Illustrated Bram van Velde Lithographies, p. 79. Image size: 470x650mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Le Sauvé / The saved (BvV 354). Original 5-color lithograph, 1980. 100 signed and numbered impressions (of which ours is n. 18/100) plus c. 1500 unsigned impressions with a centerfold as published in the deluxe art review Derrière le Miroir, where the margins were trimmed to fit to the loose folio, and a text is printed on the verso. Illustrated Bram van Velde Lithographies, p. 81. Image size: 406x586mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Ce Qui Reste / That which remains (BvV 358). Original 5-color lithograph, 1980. 100 signed and numbered impressions on Arches, of which ours is n. 17/100. Illustrated Bram van Velde Lithographies, p. 85. Image size: 645x485mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Fenêtre / Window (BvV 400). Original 3-color lithograph, 1981. 90 signed and numbered impression, of which ours is 2/120. Image size: 638x482mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Le bonheur de Matisse / Matisse's happiness (BvV 386). Original 12-color lithograph, 1981. 100 numbered impressions on Arches (of which ours is n. 25/100) signed with the brush lower left. This lithograph was chosen to illustrate an article on Bram van Velde in Art in America (and unfortunately printed upside down). Image size: 647x977mm. Mat size: 36x48 inches. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Désertique (BvV 390). Original 8-color lithograph, 1981. 100 numbered impressions on Arches (of which ours is n. 72/100) signed with the brush lower right. Image size: 648x664mm. Mat size: 32x34 inches. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Nocturne (BvV 404). Original 5-color lithograph, 1981. 100 numbered impressions on Arches (of which ours is n. 4/100) signed by brush. Image size: 610x883mm. Mat size: 32x40 inches. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

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