Galley Swart is a former Dutch gallery of

Riekje Swart Hendrika (Riekje) Swart (1 August 1923 in George Town, Penang, Malaysia – 27 September 2008 in Amsterdam) was a Dutch gallery owner of Gallery Swart in Amsterdam from 1964 until 2000. She was awarded the Benno Premsela Prize in 2002 for her cont ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

from 1964 to 2000. The gallery promoted contemporary art of varies young art movements, and primarily wanted to arise interest for modern art.Pauline Micheels,
Swart, Hendrika
, in: ''Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland'', 09/01/2018.

History

Foundation and early years

The Galley Swart was founded by

and opened its door in 1964 at the Keizersgracht 478 in a time there were only four or five real galleries in Amsterdam. The gallery came into prominence as promoter of a new group of young Dutch artists, which included Bob Bonies, Ad Dekkers and

Peter Struycken Peter Struycken (born 5 January 1939 in The Hague) is a Dutch artist, and the brother of actor Carel Struycken. He won the 2012 Heineken Prize for Arts from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of ...

and the German

Ewerdt Hilgemann Ewerdt Hilgemann (Born in Witten, February 21, 1938) is a German artist, currently living and working in the Netherlands. Studies and career Ewerdt Hilgemann was born in Witten, Germany and after a brief study at Westfälische Wilhelms-Univer ...

. This group opposed the dominant expressionism of the COBRA avant-garde movement, and worked towards a new type of abstract

constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...

," Edward Winters (2014),
Galerie Swart, Amsterdam in the 60s and 70s, and a peculiarly British search for 'Objective Art'
" at ''saturationpoint.org.uk.'' Accessed 2019-10-13. (A

2015-2016) named systemic constructivism and

computer art Computer art is any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, video game, website, algorithm, performance or gallery installation. Many tr ...

.
Paspoort van negenendertig Amsterdamse galeries
" ''Algemeen Handelsblad,'' Amsterdam, 1970/05/16, p. 15. In 1970 the gallery moved from the Keizersgracht to the Van Breestraat 23, close to the Stedelijk Museum. The facade was painted black and inside a shoebox 4 by 11 meters with white walls and fluorescent lighting.Arjen Ribbens. "Ik moest het goed vinden," ''NRC Handelsblad.'' 14 april 2000. The next year, in 1971, the other contemporary art gallery in Amsterdam with an international outlook

Art & Project Art & Project was a leading contemporary art gallery by Geert van Beijeren & Adriaan van Ravesteijn from 1968 to 2001 in Amsterdam and Slootdorp, the Netherlands, as well as an influential art magazine published by the gallery between 1968 and 198 ...

moved to Van Breestraat 18 right opposite the gallery. Beside the white reliefs and plastics she presented the pop art works of

Ger van Elk Ger van Elk (9 March 1941 – 17 August 2014) was a Dutch artist who created sculptures, painted photographs, installations and film. His work has been described as being both conceptual art and arte povera. Between 1959 and 1988 he lived and wo ...

, conceptual works of

Jan Dibbets Jan Dibbets (born 9 May 1941, in Weert) is an Amsterdam-based Dutch conceptual artist. His work is influenced by mathematics and works mainly with photography. Life and career In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he started as an art teacher at ...

and contemporaries such as

Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism (a term he nonetheless stridently disavowed).Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In ...

Richard Paul Lohse Richard Paul Lohse (September 13, 1902 – September 16, 1988) was a Swiss painter and graphic artist and one of the main representatives of the concrete and constructive art movements. Lohse was born in Zürich in 1902. His wish to study in Pa ...

François Morellet François Morellet (30 April 1926 – 10 May 2016) was a French contemporary abstract painter, sculptor, and light artist. His early work prefigured minimal art and conceptual art and he played a prominent role in the development of geometrical ...

Robert Ryman Robert Ryman (May 30, 1930February 8, 2019) was an American painter identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. He was best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings. He lived and worked in New York ...

Richard Tuttle Richard Dean Tuttle (born July 12, 1941) is an American postminimalist artist known for his small, casual, subtle, intimate works. His art makes use of scale and line. His works span a range of formats, from sculpture, painting, drawing, printma ...

. There were new exhibitions every three weeks with unique artworks as well as multiples with prices starting at 40

Dutch guilder The guilder ( nl, gulden, ) or florin was the currency of the Netherlands from the 15th century until 2002, when it was replaced by the euro. The Dutch name ''gulden'' was a Middle Dutch adjective meaning "golden", and reflects the fact that, wh ...

Turn to Figuration Libre in the late 1970s

In the late 1970s the gallery took a turn to the

Figuration Libre Figuration Libre ("Free Figuration") is a French art movement which began in the 1980s. It is the French equivalent of Bad Painting and Neo-expressionism in America and Europe, Junge Wilde in Germany and Transvanguardia in Italy. Artists in the m ...

art movement, presenting works of the France

Robert Combas Robert Combas (born 25 May 1957, Lyon) is a French painter and sculptor. He lives and works in Paris. He is widely recognized as a progenitor of the ''figuration libre'' movement that began in Paris around 1980 as a reaction to the art establish ...

and

Hervé di Rosa Hervé Di Rosa (born 1959 in Sète, Hérault) is a French painter. Born in Sète, France, Hervé Di Rosa is a French painter who brings to life unique characters who populate his work in the form of paintings, sculptures, installations and animati ...

, Germans such as

Walter Dahn Walter may refer to: People * Walter (name), both a surname and a given name * Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–1968) * Gunther (wrestler), Austrian professional wrestler and trainer Walter Hahn (born 19 ...

, Jiri Dokoupil and

Milan Kunc Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

. Minimalistic art was traded in for raw works, comic like, full of sex and violence. While Gallery Swart remained at its location, the

gallery in 1973 already moved on to the Willemsparkweg 36 in Amsterdam. With the twist in orientation of the Gallery Swart, some of its elder artists such as

and

left and joint the Art & Project stable.

Last years

The artists of the Figuration Libre movement in the 1980s soon became to successful for the galleries audience. The gallery took another turn and focused on another generation of young artists such as

Bert Boogaard Bert or BERT may refer to: Persons, characters, or animals known as Bert * Bert (name), commonly an abbreviated forename and sometimes a surname *Bert, a character in the poem "Bert the Wombat" by The Wiggles; from their 1992 album Here Comes a So ...

Mark Dagley Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Fi ...

, Cecile van der Heiden,

Joost van der Toorn Joost () was an Internet TV service, created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa). During 2007–2008 Joost used peer-to-peer TV ( P2PTV) technology to distribute content to their Mozilla-based desktop player; ...

Wim Delvoye Wim Delvoye (born 1965 in Wervik, West Flanders) is a Belgian neo-conceptual artist known for his inventive and often shocking projects. Much of his work is focused on the body. As the critic Robert Enright wrote in the art magazine ''Borde ...

and

André van de Wijdeven André — sometimes transliterated as Andre — is the French and Portuguese form of the name Andrew, and is now also used in the English-speaking world. It used in France, Quebec, Canada and other French-speaking countries. It is a varia ...

.Arjen Ribbens.
Promotor van een dwarse kunstmentaliteit
" ''NRC Handelsblad.'' 30 september 2008.

Photo Gallery

Some examples of the type of works of the artists presented at Gallery Swart in the Netherlands over the years. File:Twee cirkels Ad Dekkers.jpg, Two circles by Ad Dekkers in Gouda File:Donald Judd installation in Saatchi Gallery.jpg, Donald Judd installation in Saatchi Gallery File:Int. Beeldententoonstelling Sonsbeek 1986 Arnhem binnenkort open Omo 86 van G, Bestanddeelnr 933-6823.jpg, "Omo 86" of Georg Jiri Dokoupil at Sonsbeek 1986. File:Wervik kus.jpg, The Kiss by

, 2000

References

External links

Galerie Reikje
Saturation Point {{DEFAULTSORT:Swart Dutch art dealers Art museums and galleries in Amsterdam