Dode jongen

Details

Pyke Koch (Beek 1901-1991 Wassenaar)
Dode jongen
tempera on canvas laid down on panel
35.5 x 38 cm. (14 x 15 in.)
Executed in 1936.

Provenance

A. Bloembergen, Bilthoven.
Anonymous Sale; Christie's, Amsterdam, 23 May 1989, lot 183 (to Dreesmann).
Dr Anton C.R. Dreesmann (inventory no. C-191).

Literature

Jan Engelman, Pyke Koch, Amsterdam 1941, p. 33.
Carel Blotkamp, Pyke Koch, Amsterdam 1972, p. 163.
Catalogue of exhibition, Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-Van Beuningen, Pyke Koch Schilderijen en Tekeningen, 1995, p. 52, illustrated, p. 79, no. 28, illustrated.

Exhibited

Paris, Institut Néerlandais, Pyke Koch, 14 October 28 November 1982, no. 14.
Arnhem, Gemeentemuseum Arnhem, Pyke Koch, 11 December 1982 16 January 1983, no. 14.
Lieges, Musée d'Art Moderne, Pyke Koch, 28 January 14 March 1983.
Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris, La beauté exacte de Van Gogh et Mondrian - Art Pays-Bas-XXe siècle, 1994, no. 64.
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-Van Beuningen, Pyke Koch, schilderijen en tekeningen, 26 February 14 May 1995, no. 28.
Lausanne, Musée des Beaux Arts, Pyke Koch, Réalisme magique aux Pays-Bas, 18 June 27 August 1995, cat. no. 17, p. 57.

Special notice

Christie's charges a Buyer's premium calculated at 20.825% of the hammer price for each lot with a value up to €90,000. If the hammer price of a lot exceeds €90,000 then the premium for the lot is calculated at 20.825% of the first €90,000 plus 11.9% of any amount in excess of €90,000. Buyer's Premium is calculated on this basis for each lot individually.

Lot Essay

The dead boy depicted in the present lot was a son of the eldest sister of Koch who died of tuberculoses. Until recently Koch did not want this painting to be illustrated or exhibited. It was exhibited for the first time in solo exhibitions in France and Belgium in 1982. As Carel Blotkamp pointed out in the catalogue, the picture is a posthumous portrait painted from a photograph..' Although, in terms of subject matter, the portrait is unique in Koch's oeuvre, it relates in certain ways to some of his other works, notably the self portraits, which he painted during the same years. The head is totally isolated and very plastic, almost like a relief on a coin, rendered against a monochrome background; there is no spacial or atmospheric relationship between the two. All attention is drawn to the expression of the face'... (Blotkamp, op. cit, p. 52)
See for a preliminairy drawing of the same subject: catalogue of exhibition, Pyke Koch, Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 1995, no. 134.

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