Gerardus "Geer" van Velde (5 April 1898,

Lisse Lisse () is a town and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland in the Western Netherlands. The municipality, which lies within the Duin- en Bollenstreek, covers an area of of ...

– 5 March 1977,

Cachan Cachan () is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. The prestigious École Spéciale des Travaux Publics is located there. Name During the Middle Ages, Cachan was referred to in Medieval ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

) was a Dutch painter.

Biography

Van Velde was the second son of Willem Adriaan van Velde, then owner of a small case of inland waterway transport fuelwood and charcoal on the

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

and Hendrika Catharina von der Voorst, illegitimate daughter of an earl. Catharina and her four children (Neeltje, Bram, Geer, and Jacoba) were abandoned by Willem Adriaan after the bankruptcy of his business, leaving them in misery. Moving frequently, they eventually settled in

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

in 1903. In 1910, at the age of twelve, Geer became an apprentice designer in the firm with Schaijk & Eduard H. Kramers. Kramers encouraged Geer and his brother Bram van Velde to develop their interest in painting and funded both to a certain degree. The brothers moved to Paris; their experience of the 1925 Arts Décoratifs exhibition had motivated the move. Geer rented his own studio in 1926. He had a close relationship to writer

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

; their common friend, art patron

Peggy Guggenheim Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim ( ; August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, bohemianism, bohemian, and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who we ...

, suggested it was a homoerotic relationship. Beckett bought some of van Velde's paintings and wrote about them.

Literature

Germain Viatte: ''Geer Van Velde''. Cahiers d’Art, 1989.

References

1898 births 1977 deaths Dutch abstract painters People from Lisse 20th-century Dutch painters Dutch male painters 20th-century Dutch male artists {{netherlands-artist-stub