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Lot Essay
The Reaper belongs to a small group of large and monumental paintings Bart van der Leck painted just after the war. The Reaper, started in 1946 and finished in 1952, was followed by Mother and child, Woman with aeroplane from 1956 and The Haymakers from the same year. Although still faithful to the elementary colours red, blue, yellow, black and white, which he used since 1917, he gave them in these paintings a new intensity, which Oxenaar even typifies as "aggressive".
The Reaper differs in construction from many of Van der Lecks earlier paintings. There is quite some variety in the size of the colourfields. Large red colourforms are varied with more small ones and the forms do not always seem to follow the colourfields but get more identity of their own. They follow a pattern of imaginary triangles through the whole composition.
Before coming to his essential composition, Bart van der Leck made several studies on paper in which the process of the omission can be clearly followed. For the present lot there are two large sketches, one even larger than the painting itself.(see: exh.cat. Krller-Mller, 1994, p. 122, cat.no. 195 (ill.)). The other sold in these rooms, 11 December 1991, lot 275.
See colour illustration
The Reaper differs in construction from many of Van der Lecks earlier paintings. There is quite some variety in the size of the colourfields. Large red colourforms are varied with more small ones and the forms do not always seem to follow the colourfields but get more identity of their own. They follow a pattern of imaginary triangles through the whole composition.
Before coming to his essential composition, Bart van der Leck made several studies on paper in which the process of the omission can be clearly followed. For the present lot there are two large sketches, one even larger than the painting itself.(see: exh.cat. Krller-Mller, 1994, p. 122, cat.no. 195 (ill.)). The other sold in these rooms, 11 December 1991, lot 275.
See colour illustration