White Cube is pleased to announce representation of the estate of Dutch born, Belgian artist Bram Bogart (1921−2012), as well as a solo exhibition of his paintings at White Cube Mason’s Yard from 29 January – 7 March 2020.
In his expressive works, Bogart focused on paint as physical matter and explored the medium’s sculptural possibilities. Through a process of ‘building’ with a unique mixture of materials, he fused gesture with matter to create powerfully physical, three-dimensional paintings.
Initially trained as a house painter, Bogart later briefly enrolled at the Fine Arts Academy in The Hague, principally as a way to avoid being conscripted into the German army. During his long career, he worked through numerous stylistic shifts including an early period of figuration, followed by cubist geometric abstraction, gestural abstraction and finally sensually coloured sculptural paintings with heavy accumulations of paint, for which he became widely acclaimed.
In January 2020, White Cube Mason’s Yard opens a solo exhibition of works made between the 1960s and early 1990s. The paintings from this period, which include Bogart's representation of Belgium at the Venice Biennale in 1970, are often monochromatic and have such heavy impasto that they are almost organic in shape. A key work from this era, White plane white (1974), is currently on view at Tate Modern, London, in the collection display ‘Painting with White’.
In later works, the artist returned to colour and used a trowel or brush to apply vast, unconnected mounds of paint to the canvas, affirming the idea of ‘building’ with the material to create a cohesion of gesture and structure.
Mathieu Paris, Senior Director at White Cube, said: ‘Bram Bogart’s manipulation of paint and thorough research into matter and colour resulted in an incredibly unique vocabulary. As an important post-war European painter, Bogart is the perfect addition to the gallery as we further expand into representing artist estates. We look forward to collaborating with the Bram Bogart Foundation and sharing his work with a wider international audience, beginning with a solo exhibition in January 2020.’
