René Daniëls

Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Amsterdam, Galerie Helen van der Meij, René Daniëls schilderijen, Joop Stolk grafiek, 1978
Eindhoven, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum; Wolfsburg, Kunsthalle Wolfsburg; Basel, Kunsthalle Basel, René Daniëls: The Most Contemporary Picture Show , 1998-9, p. 37, illustrated in colour
Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía; Eindhoven, Van Abbemuseum, René Daniëls: An Exhibition is Always Part of a Greater Whole, 2011-2, p. 16, illustrated (installation view), p. 23, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly brighter and more vibrant in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There is evidence of extremely light wear towards the edges and extreme corner tips. Upon very close inspection, there is a faint stretcher impression along the upper edge. Further very close inspection in raking light reveals a small number of extremely thin hairline cracks in thinner areas of paint, towards the centre of the lower edge. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
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In the decade following his graduation from the Koninklijke Academie voor Kunst en Vormgeving in 1976, René Daniëls’ paintings quickly captured the attention of the international art world, having his work included in important exhibitions such as Documenta 7 and 9. Although his career was abruptly cut short when he suffered a brain aneurysm in 1987, the enormous relevance of Daniëls’ artistic contribution has since been affirmed by prestigious travelling retrospectives in 1998 and 2012, both of which included the present work.

As one of the artist’s earliest paintings, Untitled is of particular importance. The large gramophone record is a central motif of Daniëls’ work, and is highly emblematic of his fascination with punk music. His early paintings not only reacted to the surge of underground music in their subject-matter, but equally in their exploration of a dynamic formal vocabulary, which brilliantly captures the excitement and energy of the punk movement. The present work is a rare and outstanding example of Daniëls’ engagement with this musical symbol of youth, as the vibrant brushwork conveys the intensity of the concerts that the artist himself often went to. “I painted that kind of work to release myself through painting, since emotion expressed by brush and paint then was very relevant. That sounds banal, but ultimately that’s what it’s about when you’re in front of a canvas. And that emotion was also part of the punk music that just emerged” (the artist quoted in: Roland Groenenboom, Ed., De woorden staan niet op hun juiste plaats, Rotterdam 2012, p. 149).

The strong sense of movement, suggested through the powerful and lively brushstrokes of the rapidly rotating record in Untitled, not only symbolise the energy of the new punk music, but are also a radical departure from the minimal and conceptual aesthetic that dominated the art world of the 1970s. Daniëls felt the need to capture the dynamism of his times through the more lyrical handling of colour that we witness in Untitled, with syncopated patches of orange and red paint breaking up the dominant blue and black. Untitled is therefore not only historically an incredibly important work within the artist’s oeuvre, but also an outstanding example of the artist’s highly original painterly language that would influence subsequent generations of artists.