IMAGE DETAILS

Samuel Vanhoegaerden Gallery

Bram Bogart (Delft 1921-2012 Sint Truiden)
Topgroen, August 1963
Mixed media on canvas laid on wooden panel
161 x 201 cm
Signed, dated and titled on reverse
Provenance: private collection, London

In August 1963, Bram Bogart created a powerful and iconic work: Topgroen (August 1963). The painting – executed with homemade paint on a board/canvas made by the artist himself – measures approximately 161 x 201 cm and testifies to Bogart's radically innovative approach to matter and colour.

The work Topgroen is at the heart of Bogart's most highly regarded period, in which he experimented with imposing layers of paint, sculptural reliefs and a colour palette that transcends the surface and becomes almost tangible. In this work, he combines powerful fields of colour with monumental texture: an intense red surface is directly framed by thick, almost architecturally shaped green and yellow accents. The paint is hardly imagination anymore, but matter – as if the paint itself is the object.

Topgroen marks a turning point in Bogart's oeuvre: colour and volume become one, the painting resists classical painting through an enormous physical presence of the matter. The work invites tactile viewing: the depth of the paint layers, the shadow effects between reliefs, and the tension between surface and volume make it a masterpiece of material painting. Bogart thus confirms his pioneering role in European post-war abstraction.