Drypoint Engraving Couple In Their Interior Signed Nicolas Eeckman

Drypoint engraving 25 cm x 17 cm excluding margin 50 cm x 33 cm with margin signed in pencil on the right by the artist Nicolas Eeckman and numbered on the left with the stamp 16/50 and representing a couple in their interior. Sold with invoice-certificate. Very good condition.

Nicolas Eekman was born in Brussels, in the house where Victor Hugo, then in exile, began to write Les Misérables. He is the son of Thomas Adam Eekman, born in Vlissingen and Ibeltje van den Berg, born in Gouda. Nicolas’s older sister, named Kato Ibeltje Eekman, born in Brussels in 1882, married the Dutch protestant pastor Annee Rinzes de Jong in Brussels in 1910.
At the age of 18, he gave his first conference in Brussels devoted to «Van Gogh, this unknown», a painter who, in 1907, was still largely unknown to the general public. In 1912, he visits the first exhibition of Vincent van Gogh in Cologne, an experience that will be decisive.
After graduating as an architect from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, he was invited by his friend pastor Bart de Ligt to stay during the First World War at the presbytery of Nuenen, in the Netherlands. Thirty years ago, the van Gogh family lived there; Vincent created Les mangeurs de pommes de terre. Until the end of the war, exhibitions multiplied in the country and Eekman was the object of numerous acquisitions by major Dutch museums and collectors, including Hélène and Anton Kröller-Müller.
In 1921, Eekman moved to Paris and continued to exhibit in France and abroad. He was a frequent visitor to Dutch and Belgian artists living in Paris, such as Fred Klein, Piet Mondrian, César Domela, Georges Vantongerloo and Frans Masereel. He befriends the gallery owner Jeanne Bucher who will exhibit him in 1928 with Mondrian. This is the only time that Mondrian will exhibit his paintings in a gallery in Paris. These two men, who the vision of art separates, Mondrian, promoter of abstract art and Eekman, violently opposed, will remain linked by an unfailing friendship throughout their lives.
In the 1930s, Eekman regularly exhibited at group exhibitions, notably in the US, and his solo shows were held throughout Europe.
During the inter-war period, Eekman participated in the artistic life of Paris at that time in the heart of the Montparnasse district and frequented Jean Lurçat, Louis Marcoussis, André Lhote, Max Jacob, Moïse Kisling, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Armand Nakache, Paul Signac, Jacques Lipchitz, Fernand Léger, Edouard Goerg, Max Ernst, other 10,11,12.
At the 1937 Paris International Exhibition, Eekman won a gold medal for his painting La pelote bleue, later acquired by the state for the Jeu de Paume museum.
At the beginning of the Second World War, he was sought by the Nazis and took refuge in Saint-Jean-de-Luz where he temporarily signed his works under the pseudonym Ekma1.
In 1944, the Palais des beaux-arts de Bruxelles organizes a very important exhibition of Eekman to which Queen Elisabeth of Belgium goes.
In the 1950s and 1960s, exhibitions were held regularly in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland. At the International Exhibition in Deauville in 1956, he received the «Prix du Nu».
In 1961, an important wall panel (2.50 1.40 m) was commissioned by Professor Henri Griffon on the theme of medicinal plants in the world13. This work was executed for the pharmacy of the Paris airport of Orly.
Shortly after a major retrospective at the Reflets gallery in Brussels, Nicolas Eekman died on 13 November 1973 in Paris. He is buried in the Paris cemetery of Ivry (21st division).
Under the impetus of his daughter, architect Luce Eekman, the association Le Sillon Nicolas Eekman was created in 1989 and is dedicated to perpetuating the memory and work of the painter by organizing exhibitions, notably at the Atelier Grognard in Rueil-MarneMalmaison, the Palais de l'Europe in Menton, the Fondation Taylor in Paris, the Maison Descartes (Institut français des Pays-Bas) in Amsterdam, the town hall of Nuenen in the Netherlands and the Musée du dessin et de l'estampe originale in Gravelines.

Expositions diverses :

Galerie d’Audretsch, La Haye, 1915.

Galerie Van Lier, Amsterdam, 1917.

Musée d’Amsterdam, 1917.

Musée d’Arnhem, 1917.

Musée de Dordrecht, 1917.

Musée de La Haye, 1918.

Musée d’Eindhoven, 1920.

Galerie Buffa, Amsterdam, 1920.

Galerie Wolfsberger, Zurich, 1924.

Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris, 1928 (avec Piet Mondrian).

Galerie Bonaparte, Paris, 1929.

Galerie Laval, Bruxelles, 1930.

Club américain, Paris, 1931.

Galerie Montparnasse (Elkaïm), Paris, 1931.

Galerie Duncan, Paris, 1933.

Galerie Zack, Paris, 1935.

Galerie Santee-Landweer, Amsterdam, 1935.

Musée d’Art moderne, La Haye, 1937.

Galerie Denise René, Paris, 1937.

Galerie Saint-Jean-de-Luz, 1941.

Galerie de Berri, Paris (deux fois de suite), 1942.

Galerie Cercle industriel, Reims, 1942, 1944.

Galerie Allard-Capucines, Paris, 1943.

Galerie Sélection, Tunis, 1944.

Galerie Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam, 1945.

Musée du Palais des beaux-arts, Bruxelles, 1945.

Galerie Huynck et Scherjon, Amsterdam, 1945.

Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1946.

Galerie Rubens, Bruxelles (tous les deux ans), 1948.

Galerie Campo, Anvers (tous les deux ans), 1948.

Galerie Memlinc, Bruges (tous les deux ans), 1948.

Galerie Aktuaryus, Strasbourg (tous les deux ans), 1948.

Galerie Potterat, Lausanne (deux autres plus tard), 1950.

Galerie Katz (échange culturel), Bâle (en tout trois fois), 1951.

Galerie d'Orsay, Paris, 1951.

Château de la Jansonne, Arles, 1952 (trois fois).

Galerie Motte, Genève (Suisse), 1952.

Galerie Lucidel, Mons (Belgique), 1952, (puis tous les deux ans)

Galerie Reflets, Bruxelles, (Belgique) 1957, (puis tous les deux ans jusqu'en 1969)

Club 44, La Chaux-de-Fonds (Suisse), 1959.

Musée Singer, Laren (Pays-Bas), 1959.

Galerie Aktuaryus, Strasbourg, 1962 et 1972.

Galerie Vendôme, Paris, 1963 et 1969.

Institut Néerlandais, Paris, 1965-1966 et 1970.

Galerie Reflets, Bruxelles, (Belgique) 1973 et 1979.

Institut français, Amsterdam, 1980.

Musée de Flandre, Cassel, 2024.