Anton Rooskens - Spring

Technique: Lithography Hand signed: Signed by artist Year: 1972 Edition: 127/200 Condition: Very good Image dimensions: 70 x 52.5 cm Frame dimensions: 93 x 78 cm. Concerns black wooden Barth frame, 2 cm wide, 2.5 cm high. Has some user damage, see photos. Anton Rooskens attended a trade school in Venlo from 1924 to 1934, after which he apprenticed with an instrument maker. In 1935 he went to live in Amsterdam. As an autodidact he painted mainly landscapes in which the influence of Van Gogh is clearly visible. During a visit to the exhibition 'Art and Freedom' at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in 1945, Rooskens was struck by the African sculptures and ancestral woodcarvings from New Guinea. The simple, clean lines that are characteristic of this art can be found in Rooskens' work from the early post-war period, alongside cubist influences. From 1946 onwards Rooskens had regular contact with Appel, Corneille and Brands. In 1948 he met Constant. In that year he co-founded the Dutch Experimental Group, which would later merge with CoBrA. Rooskens took part in the famous CoBrA exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1949, but withdrew from the movement almost immediately afterwards. Yet his ties to CoBrA proved highly stimulating. Rooskens developed a personal language of magical signs in penetrating black, yellow, ochre, blue and red, and created compositions in which masks, shields and images of gods intertwine in a tangle of spontaneous colours and lines that nevertheless form a certain balance. In 1954 he briefly switched to a geometric style influenced by African art. From 1956 onwards his work is increasingly described with dynamically executed abstract signs on large canvases. Black paint, applied in strong strokes plays a prominent role. Around 1965, the fantasy creatures reminiscent of the CoBrA period appear in his work. His paintings become brighter again and remain so until his death in 1976.