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PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF JOHN RÄDECKER (1885-1956) Throughout his career John Rädecker made an interesting development; where his early works show various influences, varying from Jugendstil to Cubism, Rädecker made a breakthrough with his luministic paintings and after World War I gained international recognition for his expressionistic sculptural style. Rädecker was born into a sculptors family, including his father, his brothers and his sons with whom he worked together. Rädecker dreamt of sculptures as living creatures, which breathe, think, move, seduce and look at you, but are petrified. According to Rädecker "One should represent the time. One should be himself and express himself. Express yourself and you are the image of the time". Throughout his career Rädecker is called 'the artist of the dream', caused by his apparently intuitive way of working. This is reinforced by the fact that many of his early mask heads seem to be dreaming or meditating. Rädecker was inspired to make masks when he lived in Paris, where he came into contact with primitivism and ethnographic objects through his regular visits to museums. A.M. Hammacher states about the artist: 'The most important for Rädecker is giving form to a completely personal world of faces and figures. Face more often than figures. Rädecker has reshaped the face much stronger than any of his contemporaries. In his hands it has become a peculiar mix of night and day, of female and male, of dream and senses. Dream power is eminent in many of Rädecker's heads, never dominant though.' (A.M. Hammacher, De beeldhouwer John Rädecker, Amsterdam/Antwerp 1940). During his life, John Rädecker was involved in the artistic environment of the places he lived in, knowing many people, including his friends Jacob Bendien, Tjerk Bottema, Jan ten Herkel and Charley Toorop. Through Charley Toorop Rädecker came in contact with Gerrit Rietveld, whom he probably met at her house in Bergen which served as a meeting place for several artists. John Rädecker was also involved in several artistic groups. For example ASB, a Dutch abbreviation for Architecture, Painting and Sculpture. This group was established by Charley Toorop together with Bendien and Rädecker in 1926 with the aim to represent artists as well as architects on an international level. Gerrit Rietveld was also involved with this group and present at the meetings. The famous painting Maaltijd der Vrienden (1932-33, Museum Boymans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam) which is a key piece in Charley Toorop's oeuvre, shows part of the artistic environment of Amsterdam. In the painting Charley Toorop immortalized herself with her children and her social network, including poet Adriaan Roland Holst, architect Gerrit Rietveld, the sculptor John Rädecker and his family, together with the photographer Eva Besnyö and the painters Pyke Koch, Rachel Pellekaan and Wim Oepts (Fig. 1)

John Rädecker (1885-1956)

Head

Details

John Rädecker (1885-1956)
Head
signed with initials 'JR' (on the back)
tuff
57 cm. high
Executed in 1915

Literature

Y. Koopmans, John Rädecker, de droom van het levende beeld, Zwolle 2006, no. 1a-36. (illustrated).

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

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