Name: Untitled
Brand: Joost Baljeu
Availability: OutOfStock

Impressionist & Modern Art

<p>Joost Baljeu (1925-1991) was a Dutch visual artist who has been inspired by the avant-garde movements of the first half of the twentieth century, such as&nbsp;‘De Stijl’ and more global avant-garde movements. He completed his training as an art teacher during World War II at the Institute of Applied Art in Amsterdam. In 1954 he decided to give up his job in a bookstore to completely dedicate himself to art. In these first years he searched for opportunities to integrate architecture and visual arts and he was inspired by De Stijl. Under the influence of the many avant-garde movements, Baljeu started to follow the&nbsp;currents into a more&nbsp;abstract style. The present work dated 1955 was made in this period. Baljeu was inspired by Dutch artists like Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondriaan but also by developments in France, where artists made spatial colour constructions in the 1950s, such as a loyal follower of Mondrian, Jean Gorin of the Groupe Espace. Gorin had first met Mondrian in 1926 and became friends with him. Baljeu in turn met Gorin, twenty-six years his senior, in Paris. Their friendship brought Gorin to Amsterdam several times, including in 1967 for a retrospective exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum.</p>