Bram van Velde belongs to the older generation of abstract expressionists. He grows up in Zoeterwoude (near Leiden), in a working class family of four children. At the age of twelve, he gets a job at a home furnishing company, where he develops himself as a decorative painter. His employer notices his painting talent, and with his support Van Velde leaves for Germany, where he joins an artists’ colony.
In 1925, Van Velde leaves for France. He resides alternately in Paris, Corsica and Majorca, and lives there in misery and poverty.
After Wold War II, Van Velde has a number of exhibitions, but yet, without success. He still lives in great poverty and finds himself in an almost permanent state of depression. A successful sales exhibition in 1957 heralds a turning point in his career, eventually culminating in world fame. One year later – he is over sixty by then – he gets his first museum exhibition in the Kunsthalle Bern, followed in 1959 by an exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
In 1989, eight years after his death, the Bonnefantenmuseum and the Centre George Pompidou jointly organise a major retrospective of Van Velde’s work in Maastricht and Paris.
