Beekman Paintings

Dutch painter Tjebbe Beekman's loaded canvases are abstract and expressive at the same time, disorienting the viewer's sense of space. The artist uses paint, sand and plaster which he layers onto the canvas with a brush, palette knife or his fingers, to later be scraped away or built up into relief. While previous works dealt with themes of a dystopian society depicted through fragmented architectonical structures, like abandoned offices or panoramic scenes of stock exchanges, his recent work has become increasingly complex, its visual idiom and colour palette linked to the work of twentieth-century artists such as Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso and Max Beckmann, among others.

Beekman Paintings is the first monograph on Tjebbe Beekman (1972). The book includes 90 of his works. This richly illustrated publication, designed by Irma Boom and with textual contributions by Rudi Fuchs, Hans den Hartog Jager and Anna Tilroe, provides an indispensable overview of the 20-year oeuvre of one of the most important Dutch artists of his generation.