On January 15, 1913, Eugène Brands was born in the vibrant city of Amsterdam. His journey through the art world would be a fascinating and unpredictable journey, which would leave its mark on the Dutch avant-garde art scene.
In the early 1930s, Brands decided to follow his artistic path by training at the Amsterdam Applied Arts School, where he focused on advertising design. However, after working as an advertising designer for several years, he chose the path of visual arts and took up the challenge as a self-taught artist.
The year 1948 marked an important turning point in Brands' career, when he became a member of the Dutch Experimental group REFLEX. This group would later evolve, with the participation of some artists, into the famous CoBrA movement. A meeting with Willem Sandberg, former director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, led to a groundbreaking exhibition in 1949, in which CoBrA presented itself to the Netherlands for the first time. Remarkably, Brands left CoBrA just a year after its founding in 1949, retreating to his studio for the next ten years. There he was inspired by 'the world of the child' and developed a special technique: oil paint on paper.
From 1967 he fulfilled various roles, including teacher of Free Painting at the Royal Academy of Modern Art and Design in 's-Hertogenbosch. Brands was known for his many solo exhibitions, both nationally and internationally.
Some highlights in his exhibition history include the retrospectives at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1969, in the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam in 1988, in the Beyerd in Breda in 1990, and in the CoBrA Museum of Modern Art in Amstelveen in 1997 and 2001.
Although Brands lived and worked in Amsterdam for a long time, he moved to a summer residence in Nunspeet on the Hoge Veluwe in 1974. Here, amid the silence of nature, he felt the mystery of the cosmos more strongly than ever before. In the beauty of nature, the colors of crocuses and violets, and the reflection of the pond in his garden, Brands found the mystery that continued to inspire him.
In 1993 Brands made a major decision; he stopped painting on canvas because it became too physically demanding for him. He limited himself to his beloved gouaches on paper, which gave him the freedom he sought to continue creating.
In 1999 he exchanged his studio in Nunspeet for a studio in the south of France, although unfortunately he was only able to enjoy this new environment for a short time.
On January 15, 2002, the day he celebrated his 89th birthday, Eugène Brands died in his home environment. His legacy as an artist, his experimental spirit and his unique creative journey continue to live on in the hearts of art lovers around the world.
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