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Arie Kater

ARIE KATER –

” Art can’t be teached” –

The art of Arie Kater is primarily known by devotees of the “belle peinture”. He died, too young, at the age of fifty-five in 1977.

In 1980 there was a commemoration exhibition in Museum Waterland, Netherlands. Journalists are astonished and touched. “If anyone shows his soul, it’s Arie Kater. About one of his paintings of a man and woman embracing each other. “in this embrace the contradictory emotions happiness, sadness, and pain of the knowledge that happiness evaporates are all captured in one picture. Life and painting are one for Arie Kater. His paintings are witness to the contradictions that are part of human existence. It’s remarkable that his existential art didn’t make ‘school’. Especially now that there is no taboo in contemporary society on painting erotic themes.”

At the age of fourteen (1936) Kater goes to the Graphical school, at the same time he is ‘retoucher’ at the cliché department of the publishing company “De Arbeiderspers”.

1942 Arie Kater takes evening classes at the National Academy of Art in Amsterdam. This Academy is at that time the leading art institute in the Netherlands. In 1971 Arie Kater will be promoted to art professor.

In the hunger winter of 1944-1945 the Royal academy is closed, leaving Kater to finish his study in 1946.

In the beginning of the sixties Arie Kater acclaims fame with his personal style of painting. He doesn’t join the abstract avant-garde. His paintings and drawings always stay figurative. Ten years earlier he becomes a member of the art society “De Keerkring” and the “Hollandse Aquarellistenkring”. The “Keerkring” tries to take an independent stand between the figuratives and non-figuratives.

In 1952 a broad audience appreciates Arie Kater’s paintings. He wins the “Koninklijke subsidy voor de schilderkunt” (Royal subsidy for art).

At the age of 35 Arie Kater has his first solo exhibition. In 1957 he has an exhibition in Magdalena Sothmans Arthouse. In the opening speech the journalist Bob Buys of the “Haarlems Dagblad” points out Arie Kater’s unique position within the Dutch art scene. His paintings with the central theme, man and his surroundings, are unique in the Netherlands.

One year later Kater has a new solo exhibition , now at the Art Centre in the North Holland art community Bergen. The older Bergen’s painter Jan van Herwijnen (1889-1965) opens the exhibition with the words: ” In this world where appearance is seen as the essence of reality, both in society as in art, so that it makes your head spin, Arie Kater is luckily not one of the many for whom the end justifies the means.” From this year on the council of Amsterdam annually buys work from Kater. The ‘Stedelijk Museum” buys top work like ‘Het Bruidje’ (1958) (The Bride), ‘De Overwinnaar’ (1959) (The Conqueror), ‘De Lachende Man (1960) (The Laughing Man), a large self-portrait, 200 cm high (1963). The government also buys work from Arie Kater. His work is seen in museums throughout the Netherlands, the rest of Europe and prestigious exhibitions such as the Biennale in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

When Arie Kater receives a grant to travel, his career gets an enormous impulse. He travels to Madrid to see the work of his favorite painters El Greco (1541-1614), Diego Velásquez (1599-1660) and Francisco Goya (1746-1828). The ‘subconscious expressionism’ of these painters intrigues Kater more than the discussions about abstraction or realism, which predominate the Dutch art world. On his return he is commissioned to paint Holland’s most famous actor, Ko van Dijk as lead in the play Danton’s Death by Georg Brüchner. He paints van Dijk with the same grand style as Velázquez put Philip IV on canvas and momentarily has a permanent place in the Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam (City Theatre Amsterdam).

Writer Simon Carmiggelt (1913-1987), winner of the prestigious PC Hooft prize, captures Arie Kater on paper in his poem, ‘The Painter’, and as a friend said, “He was the anti snob, not to be corrupted by fashion. With his unmentionable somber eyes he could see through pretence and formulated his opinion in simple words”.

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