Peter van den Braken - The shard - Oil on canvas, signed bottom right. - Sold

Peter van den Braken, born in 1896 in Eindhoven and died there in 1979, knew at a young age that he wanted to become a painter. After jobs as a house and church painter, he developed as an autodidact, although contacts with father Jan and son Anton Kruysen were stimulating for his artistic development. A successful exhibition in Scheveningen in 1922, where he was noticed by renowned art critics, was the start of a long series of exhibitions at home and abroad. He is a freebooter who is attached to his freedom. He lived in many places in the Netherlands and traveled all over the world, leading an adventurous and restless life. In heart and soul he is and remains a Brabander who is devoted to his native land, which is evident from his work - including what he has produced along the way. Peter van den Braken's paintings are emotionally constructed from color; composition, lines and proportions are secondary. They are not created from direct observation, but from sketches or from memory, so that detail is omitted. Without delay, he skillfully creates his work, which has a strong and impetuous character and which, by working directly from paint tubes and with a palette knife, has a pasty, grainy structure, which is his trademark. This 'painting sculptor' is mainly concerned with evoking a characteristic mood or atmosphere in his landscapes and still lifes - he rarely made portraits. In his work, the productive painter Peter van den Braken documents the authentic Brabant of yesteryear, which is rapidly disappearing during his lifetime due to industrialization, urbanization and economic growth.