Notes

Evert Thielen is one of the top Dutch contemporary artists, with over 110.000 visitors to see his retrospective exhibition in Venlo at the Limburgs Museum in 2019, becoming the most succesful exhibition the Museum has ever put on! The exhibition celebrated his 50th anniversary in art and this location was fitting as it is where the artist was born.

Aged 15, Evert Thielen (Venlo, 1954) was inspired by a 15th century multi-panel in the Church of Gent by the Van Eyck brothers. He became very interested in early painting techniques and all technical aspects of painting on panels and multi-panels. This focus on technique is clearly visible in all of his works.
After high school, Thielen spent two years at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. A number of solo exhibitions followed, in which he focused on making his first polyptich “De Schilderkunst” (The art of painting).

From 1980 to 1983 he participated in a study of the painting techniques and materials of Van Eyck’s “Lam Gods” (The Ghent Altarpiece – Adoration of the Mystic Lamb) at the Koninklijk Instituut van het Kunstpatrimonium (Royal Academy of Art Heritage) in Brussels.

After spending some time in Munich, he painted the polyptich “De Schepping” (The Creation) (1987-1992). This work led to a commission from the Sara Lee/Douwe Egberts concern in Utrecht in the form of the polyptich “Unified” (1993-1996).

In 1999 he moved to Bruges (Belgium), where he started work on the polyptich “Het Verlangen” (Longing), which was completed in 2005 and will be exhibited in public for the first time in Museum de Fundatie (Zwolle) in 2011. The fourth polyptich generated a commission for a fifth in 2006 entitled “Bellenhof” (2006-…).

Douwes Fine Art can offer his works exclusively after working together succesfully and fruitfully for several decades.