AD SNIJDERS: RETROSPECTIVE

Adrianus Cornelis Snijders was born on May 12, 1929 in Eindhoven. Thanks to French government grants in 1961 and 1962, he studied at La Grande Chaumière in Paris. In 1994 the Van Abbemuseum presented a selection of his works from 1947 to 1994 and he was awarded the prestigious title of Knight of the Order of Oranje Nassau. In 2000, the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum in Bratislava opened its doors with a group exhibition of Dutch Painters (1950 – 2000). It was comprised of works from the collection of Gerard Meulensteen, and included eight paintings by Snijders from 1993-1996. His third solo exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum took place in 2004 and featured his latest artistic developments. Snijders was a great admirer of jazz music. In addition to paintings in which he used various techniques, he made sculptures of wood and papier-mâché and fragile metal constructions. He died on February 25, 2010 in Eindhoven.

Ad Snijders is inseparably connected with Eindhoven and the Van Abbemuseum. Since this museum presented his solo exhibitions and many group exhibitions in which he participated, we can consider him as the principal witness of all of its events and its artistic spirit. In many ways, Snijders’ art was steps ahead of the artistic direction of the CoBrA Group. His painting was marked by spontaneity and highly creative improvisation. Although he also worked with colors, the line was crucial in his paintings and took on a life of its own. He did his final oil paintings in 1964 and moved on to combine painting with assemblage and collage elements with a preference for figurative motifs. He frequently used quotes from art history and borrowed pictures from advertisements and various media. He created a large series of dynamic abstract compositions on hardboard in which he applied loud colors such as yellow, orange, red, deep blue and dark green. Acrylics allowed him to work spontaneously and fast; he liked to connect various color fields with drips of paint. After a lengthy period during which he created expressive, abstract paintings, Snijders returned to a more figurative approach in the mid-1990s. From 2000 to 2002 he created a series of paintings that once again blended figuration with abstraction against a dark background, but now with an intensive use of color and broad, expressive lines. He created two separate series with paint on paper and oil on canvas depicting married couples and families. During this period he repeatedly created portraits, frequently with specific faces and figures in dark colors and shades of black, and always in his own distinctive manner. He later described some portraits as introspective ‘mirror images’. They are self-portraits that communicated with his own “ego”.

Author of text: Dagmar Kudoláni Srnenská

Location: Danubiana, Čunovo, Slovakia
Date: until 12.06.2022
Opening hours: 10:00 – 18:00
Admission: 10 €

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