Dick Beer
Cubist Portrait of Gabriele Varese (in Italian uniform), 1919
1919

About the Item

Dick Beer (b. London 1893 - d. Stockholm 1938) Portrait of Gabriele Varese (in Italian uniform), 1919 oil on canvas mounted on panel 116 x 90 cm stamp signature Exhibited: Solo exhibition, Stockholm, Nov-Dec 1917; The Royal Academy Stockholm 1973; Åmells Konsthandel – En internationell kubist, Stockholm & London 2008 Hälsinglands Museum 2011 Millesgården – Dick Beer – Impressionist & Kubist, 2012 Provenance: Within the family Beer until today Dick Beer was born in 1893 in London as Richard Beer, the youngest of five brothers. His father, John Beer (1853-1906), was a watercolourist who was born in Stockholm and had left Sweden at the age of 17. John Beer instructed his sons in drawing and painting, among other things. A number of sketchbooks bear testimony to the boys’ talent. Dick Beer’s parents died in 1906 and 1907. Barely 15 years old, Beer arrived in Sweden as an orphan. First he lived with relatives and finally he ended up at Reverend Laurell in Västergötland. Dick Beer began his artistic studies at the Althin School of Painting in Stockholm in 1908 and continued at the Royal Academy of Arts in the autumn of 1910, but in September 1912 he broke off his studies and travelled to Paris. He rented a studio and enrolled at the Colarossi and Grande Chaumière academies. In the summer of 1913, Dick Beer travelled to Pont-Aven in Bretagne in order to paint. In September the same year, he held his first solo exhibition in Stockholm which he gave the French title Exposition des tableaux de Bretagne et autour de Paris. The exhibition proved a success. Many of the paintings were executed in a light palette in a style inspired by the impressionists. In 1914, Dick Beer undertook an extensive study trip to Italy, Tunis, Morocco and Spain, which resulted in canvases overflowing with colours and light. When the French army mobilised, he volunteered and was enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. In 1915 Dick Beer sustained severe head injuries in a grenade attack, which resulted in deafness and a nervous condition that would plague him for the rest of his life. Two of his brothers died the following year, fighting for the English army. Dick Beer was hospitalised and convalesced at Château de Rochefort. Here he started painting again, in an impressionist style, a painting dominated by blue and green hues. In 1918, Dick Beer married Ruth Öhrling, a dentist, and their son John was born later in the year. During this time, Beer began experimenting with cubist painting and created several large compositions, including the painting “The Arab Café”. In the years that followed, Dick Beer was based in Paris, where he often moved house. He was instructed by André Lhote, who encouraged his students to work freely in the studio and provided them with individual critique. Beer often travelled to Bretagne or Provence. His artist friends came from all over Europe and included Amedeo Modigliani. Dick Beer exhibited fairly regularly in Paris between 1919 and 1934 and made a name for himself in French artist circles. In the summers, Ruth regularly rented a house in the countryside, often at Lake Mälaren. She kept a large house with many models and friends and there was a lot of painting and discussions. In 1933, the couple divorced but Ruth still loved Dick and continued to support him financially for the rest of his life. Dick Beer also exhibited in Sweden, albeit irregularly due to his failing health. In the 1920s and 1930s, Beer continued to pursue an expressionist painting with intense colours and unexpected perspectives, but eventually he veered towards more naturalistic forms, including a large number of nudes. He also painted several portraits of artists, politicians and writers. In 1938, Dick Beer sojourned in Arles. The budding photographer Christer Strömholm became a student of Dick Beer’s and they developed an intimate friendship. In June the same year, Dick Beer died in Stockholm following complications of pneumonia. Cubistic vision In the period following the First World War, the artist’s painting underwent a fundamental transformation. Dick Beer was influenced by various modernistic expressions. In Paris, the first wave of cubism, led by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, was established. It was a controversial artistic style. There was a heated debate about cubism, in which the artist broke up the motif into smaller components, sometimes called facets, in order to rebuild it on the flat surface of the pictorial plane. This manner of painting represented a complete break with preceding pictorial conventions and naturalistic painting. Cubism was governed by theory, not practice, and critics claimed that the style was too intellectual for the general public and they predicted that it would disappear and that artists would return to a rather more classic expression. The theories surrounding cubism and its various expressions opened up for a number of reinterpretations in the 1910s. Dick Beer was well aware of the cubist discussions. He embraced the ideas but created a varied, personal and emotive cubism in the years around 1918. His painting was often an explosive discharge with playful characteristics and a futuristic dynamism which accentuated the painting’s inherent speed and movement, as for example his works “Dancer” and “The Toy Box”. He also experimented with geometric compositions of buildings and landscapes, which were reminiscent of Paul Cézanne’s more cubic landscapes. Here, Beer’s colours were often muted, in blue, brown and red hues. He frequently returned to earlier motifs and reworked his canvases into a cubist style, as in “Dancer tying her shoes” and “Seated dancer“. Contemporary art critics were appalled and Beer had to endure severe criticism. At one point, the artist published a reply in the daily Politiken, 1919, where he described his view on art: “... because love for and understanding of art, ‘l’art pour l’art’, is not easy to achieve, and neither is it easy to comprehend the different movements’ or schools’ origin, goals, characteristic endeavours, etc. – These international phenomena require not only theoretical and art historical knowledge but (...) the ability to empathise with and feel for art, as its practitioners do”.

Creator:

Dick Beer (1893 - 1938, Swedish, British)

Creation Year:

1919

Dimensions:

Height: 45.67 in (116 cm)Width: 35.44 in (90 cm)

Medium:

Canvas,Oil,Panel

Movement & Style:

Cubist

Period:

1910-1919