Bervoets, Cox & Ysbrant
- Event
- Temporary exhibition
- Date
- 01 July 2023 until 03 September 2023
Amsterdam orchestra director Siewert Verster is providing a first. He donated five paintings by Ysbrant van Wijngaarden to KMSKA. And that is a nice addition, as the museum did not yet have any work by this artist. The American Stéphane Janssen Trust is adding to it. With the support of Rodolphe Janssen and Ann Sanchez, this Trust donated two works by Fred Bervoets and a painting by Jan Cox. Both donations were realised thanks to the mediation of Adriaan Raemdonck of Galerie De Zwarte Panter. KMSKA will show this new work in a summer exhibition.
Fred Bervoets, Jan Cox and Ysbrant make very different work at first glance. Yet numerous threads connect them to each other and to Antwerp's art web. Like Jan Cox, Ysbrant sees the light of day in The Hague, only some 20 years later. Both end up in Antwerp and play an important role in the art scene here, together with Fred Bervoets (°1942), the youngest of the trio.
Cox and Bervoets, together with Walter Goossens and Wilfried Pas, form the core of gallery De Zwarte Panter in the 1970s. The foursome even exhibited at KMSKA in 1975. The gallery is the brainchild of Adriaan Raemdonck, who also studied at the Antwerp Academy like Bervoets. Raemdonck says of that time: "I abandoned my own artistic ambitions when I saw Fred Bervoets painting. He once came to borrow some tubes of paint, and in no time emptied them on a canvas. I had to acknowledge my superiority." Ysbrant also joins the Panther stable.
With that, the protagonists have been introduced. Bervoets, Cox and Ysbrant make the Antwerp art heart beat harder and seem to flirt with the Cobra movement. They are not always happy with that comparison themselves. Yet their colour palette very much leans towards that of the wild Cobra artists like Karel Appel. For Bervoets, Cox and Ysbrant, moreover, it is the result that counts more than the subject or the perfect technique.
Compared to the often chaotic work of Bervoets and Ysbrant, Jan Cox rather seems to excel in carefully constructed compositions with a magical, surreal atmosphere. This is also evident in the work that now joins the KMSKA collection: Fred in His Eternal Storm. Not surprisingly, the 'Fred' in the title is friend Fred Bervoets. Cox and Bervoets share a 'struggle for life'. In 1980 Cox eventually chooses suicide. Bervoets processes the death of his dyeing brother with a grey period. From this period, the KMSKA already had several works in its collection. Thanks to the donation, more cheerful work has been added so that the museum can show a broader overview of Bervoet's oeuvre. This, in turn, matches the paintings by Ysbrant, who had a lighter outlook on life.
The benefactors who support the KMSKA with donations and bequests play a crucial role in building and maintaining the particularly valuable collection the KMSKA keeps and exhibits. More than 40% of the collection consists of legacies and donations. The museum is therefore extremely grateful to these people.
