Biographie

1898–1977

Geer van Velde was born in Lisse, a town South West from Ams­ter­dam. At a very young age he was aban­doned by his father, leav­ing him, his sib­lings and moth­er in a state of dai­ly mis­ery. Aged twelve Geer was appren­ticed to a design­er who encour­aged his artis­tic talent.

In 1925, Geer joined his elder broth­er the painter Bram van Velde in Paris and decid­ed to become a full-time painter. Togeth­er with his broth­er, they embarked on a road of pover­ty, rent­ing rooms in Mont­par­nasse and at times liv­ing from hand-outs.

Togeth­er Geer and Bram exhib­it­ed at the ‘Salon des Indépen­dants’ of 1928, 1929 and 1930, but were hard­ly noticed by critics.

In 1937 Geer van Velde met the young Samuel Beck­ett, who revived his innate qual­i­ty to look for the essence whilst inter­ro­gat­ing the human con­di­tion. Under the wing of Beck­ett, Geer van Velde had a major exhi­bi­tion in 1938 at the Guggen­heim Jeune gallery in Lon­don, then under the direc­tion of Peg­gy Guggen­heim. His works bore tes­ti­mo­ny to his exis­ten­tial ques­tions. The exhi­bi­tion was a com­mer­cial flop and Geer, Bram and Beck­ett became estranged. Lat­er that year, Geer left Paris for the South of France, where he set­tled in Cagnes-sur-Mer until the end of the Sec­ond World War. The Mediter­ranean light marked his palette and his encoun­ters with the painter Pierre Bon­nard and gallery own­er Aimé Maeght were influ­en­tial for his future.

Upon his return to Paris in 1944 Geer set­tled in Cachan on the out­skirts of Paris. He renewed con­tact with Beck­ett and with his broth­er Bram who was liv­ing in decrepit cir­cum­stances. With his friend Aimé Maeght Geer was able to organ­ise an exhi­bi­tion for Bram in 1945. The fol­low­ing year Maeght organ­ised a one-man show for Geer. Beck­ett wrote arti­cles on the work of both broth­ers. Maeght had a firm belief in the brother’s tal­ent and pub­lished their works in his renowned mag­a­zine Der­rière le Mirroir.

In 1948 Maeght host­ed an exhi­bi­tion for both broth­ers before the Samuel Kootz Gallery in New York showed them in ‘Two Mod­ern French Painters: Geer van Velde – Bram van Velde’. In 1952 Maeght showed Geer again.

Since 1948 Geer van Velde had joined the Post-War Ecole de Paris and devel­oped his unique artis­tic lan­guage out of the frac­tures of Serge Poli­akoff and the build­ing blocks of Nico­las de Stael. Geer’s exis­ten­tial ques­tions hov­er­ing over his paint­ings, nev­er con­cerned ele­gance as a goal, but rather the visu­al­i­sa­tion of the emo­tion­al which imbues his work with ten­sion and dream alike.