Michel van Overbeeke - Color etching, Cross or coin - Framed - Sold

Special color etching by Michel van Overbeeke. The work is hand signed by the artist. Michel van Overbeeke (The Hague, 1942) Van Overbeeke grows up in a family that drags on in abject poverty. His youth cannot easily be called carefree and happy. His parents divorced at the time Michel was born and his father would remarry three times. He will not meet his mother until he is fourteen. Six years after his birth, the family (with stepmother Popje) ends up in the center of Haarlem, where his father rents out a room on the attic floor as extra income to a drawing club for amateurs: 'De Vrije Kunstkring'. This laid the foundation for Michel's further career as an artist. When he is caught by his father while peeking at the nude model from the Art Circle, his father punishes him by making him mandatory to participate in the drawing meetings. With club member Otto van der Peet as a source of inspiration, the seeds for his artistry were sown! After an unsuccesful period at the Haarlem Lyceum, his father allowed him to study at the Graphic School Amsterdam. He passes the entrance exam 'Cum Laude' and feels like a fish in water. Even though it is not an academy but more of a school education. Later he will say that he is glad he did not end up at the Academy. Now he has had the opportunity to put his own face in his visual art more quickly. With its own formal language that developed parallel to his spiritual experiences. At the age of nineteen, Van Overbeeke graduated as the best student of his year, seven months after the death of his father and in the year that his son Manuel was born. The first few years are tough and the young Overbeeke family survives with jobs and donations. At the suggestion of the then director of modern art of the Frans Hals Museum, he entered the Visual Arts Regulations (BKR) at the age of 23 and from then on he had the freedom to focus on being an artist. After three years he can say goodbye to the BKR. He completely sells out an exhibition in Amsterdam, which earns him five thousand guilders. A formidable amount for 1969! The future smiles upon him! A successful period is coming for Van Overbeeke. The work sells very well and his wife Christhilde takes care of the business side of being an artist. This means that the two are constantly together, and that starts to get annoying. After fifteen years of marriage they divorced. Michel moves to India and immerses himself in philosophy, yoga culture and religion. He has always incorporated religious symbols into his art and will never let go. All religions have a place in his work in their own way. In addition, eroticism also has an important place. Not to provoke, but to make his feelings recognised. In his work, the symbols of woman, eroticism and religion compete for their own place in his world of expression. Van Overbeeke: 'Eroticism remains something difficult in public opinion. Everyone has everything to do with it on the inside, but no one on the outside should notice anything. It's important to me." The recognition has come and his work is also shown internationally at exhibitions all over the world: Brussels, Tokyo, Copenhagen, Paris, Buffalo, Luxembourg, Ljubljana... In recent years, Van Overbeeke has also further developed his artistry and has become increasingly (successfully) involved in glass art.