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Lot Essay
During a short period in the early 1920's Wobbe Alkema was a member of De Ploeg, a society of artists from Groningen. This group aimed at changing the narrow-minded and conservative art climate in the city.
In style and ideas the artists were widely divergent. Today the group is mainly remembered for the expressionsts Jan Wiegers, Jan Altink and Johan Dijkstra. Some of the De Ploeg artists had no affinity with this German oriented expressionism and developed a style based on abstraction. This so called Gronings Konstruktivisme comprised artists such as Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman, Jan van der Zee and Wobbe Alkema. They did not share a common theoretical background and worked in different styles. Alkema's work of the 1920's is very rare. It consists mainly of drawings, lino art and paintings. Only twenty-four oil paintings from that period are known today.
Alkema's earliest abstract work En passant from 1921-1922 is still related to reality. An abstracted figure can be discerned in the image. His first completely abstract paintings are from 1923. Until 1930 he made only twenty paintings. After that date he did not paint until the end of World War II. In these works there is no reference to natural forms. They are built up with overlapping circles, squared, triangles and lines. These geometric forms dominate the canvas, and the colours are mainly dark.
In the years 1925-1926 the forms are sometimes more detached, while the colours become lighter and more frivolous.
The present lot is one of the few early paintings of Alkema. In his choice of geometric forms Alkema was very strict; his colouring was more free and intuitive. To Alkema, Mondrian's restrictions in form and colour went much to far. Alkema had not much in common with the other De Ploeg members who did not really understand his work. Far more important for his artistic development was his contact with the Belgian constructivist group around the magazine Het Overzicht, such as Jozef Peeters and Felix de Boeck. In 1924 and 1925 Alkema travelled to Belgium to visit Peeters. His latest work was published in several issues of Het Overzicht. The similarities between his work and that of the Belgian artist are evident but, according to Alkema, Belgium constructivism was also far to much based on geometrical principals. On the contrary: Alkema's constructivism is based on intuition and personal emotions and had no theoretical foundation. As Ad Petersen mentioned: to Alkema "every painting is a personal expression, a means to find inner harmony and a pureness that did not exist in the outside world." (Petersen, op.cit., p. 2)
In style and ideas the artists were widely divergent. Today the group is mainly remembered for the expressionsts Jan Wiegers, Jan Altink and Johan Dijkstra. Some of the De Ploeg artists had no affinity with this German oriented expressionism and developed a style based on abstraction. This so called Gronings Konstruktivisme comprised artists such as Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman, Jan van der Zee and Wobbe Alkema. They did not share a common theoretical background and worked in different styles. Alkema's work of the 1920's is very rare. It consists mainly of drawings, lino art and paintings. Only twenty-four oil paintings from that period are known today.
Alkema's earliest abstract work En passant from 1921-1922 is still related to reality. An abstracted figure can be discerned in the image. His first completely abstract paintings are from 1923. Until 1930 he made only twenty paintings. After that date he did not paint until the end of World War II. In these works there is no reference to natural forms. They are built up with overlapping circles, squared, triangles and lines. These geometric forms dominate the canvas, and the colours are mainly dark.
In the years 1925-1926 the forms are sometimes more detached, while the colours become lighter and more frivolous.
The present lot is one of the few early paintings of Alkema. In his choice of geometric forms Alkema was very strict; his colouring was more free and intuitive. To Alkema, Mondrian's restrictions in form and colour went much to far. Alkema had not much in common with the other De Ploeg members who did not really understand his work. Far more important for his artistic development was his contact with the Belgian constructivist group around the magazine Het Overzicht, such as Jozef Peeters and Felix de Boeck. In 1924 and 1925 Alkema travelled to Belgium to visit Peeters. His latest work was published in several issues of Het Overzicht. The similarities between his work and that of the Belgian artist are evident but, according to Alkema, Belgium constructivism was also far to much based on geometrical principals. On the contrary: Alkema's constructivism is based on intuition and personal emotions and had no theoretical foundation. As Ad Petersen mentioned: to Alkema "every painting is a personal expression, a means to find inner harmony and a pureness that did not exist in the outside world." (Petersen, op.cit., p. 2)