Constant Nieuwenhuys

Constant Anton Nieuwenhuys (21 July 1920 – 1 August 2005), better known as Constant, was a Dutch painter, sculptor, graphic artist, author and musician.

Constant was born in Amsterdam on 21 July 1920 as the first son of Pieter Nieuwenhuijs and Maria Cornelissen.

Their second son, Jan Nieuwenhuys, was born a year later.

Both sons became artists although their parents had no apparent interest in art.

As a young child Constant drew passionately and showed great talent.

He read literature with a special preference for poetry and played musical instruments.

During his teenage years he learned to sing and to read music while in the church choir at the Ignatius Gymnasium, a prestigious Jesuit school in Amsterdam.

In his later years, greatly inspired by gypsy music, he only played improvised music.

He played guitar, violin and at 45 years of age also mastered playing the cimbalon.

Constant painted his first oil painting, De Emmaüsgangers, at age sixteen.

It depicted the revelation of Jesus to two of his followers in Emmaus.

With no money to buy materials he painted this painting on a jute sugar bag with pigments he had bought from a house painter.

Many of Constant's early drawings and paintings are religiously inspired, due to his Jesuit schooling.

Yet at the age of twenty Constant turned his back on Catholicism.

After one year studying at the Kunstnijverheidsschool (Arts and Crafts School), Constant attended the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunst (State Academy of Fine Arts) from 1939 to 1941.

This education in craftmanship was put to use especially during his "New Babylon" period, when Constant built many constructions and models.

Constant lived and worked in Bergen from 1941 to 1943.

Through the Bergense School he was introduced to the work of Paul Cézanne, which impacted him deeply, as evident in Zelfportret (Self Portrait), 1942.

On 13 July 1942 he married Matie van Domselaer, the daughter of the composer Jakob van Domselaer.

The city of Bergen was evacuated by the Germans in 1943 and so Constant and Matie moved back to Amsterdam.

During this period Constant went into hiding and refrained from registering at the Kulturkammer (Nazi Chamber of Culture) to avoid the Arbeitseinsatz (labour supply for the Germans).

Because of this he was unable to conventionally exercise his craft or to buy art supplies.

To paint Constant used tablecloths and bed linen and had to rinse them out to start again.

During the war Constant's brother in law, Jaap van Domselaer, moved into the apartment to hide from the 'Arbeitseinsatz.' He introduced Constant to Plato, Spinoza, Descartes, Kant, Hegel and Marx.

Especially the latter provided great inspiration to Constant regarding his later ideas on art and society.

During the winter famine of 1944 Constant's first son, Victor Nieuwenhuys, was born.

After the war, Constant, his wife and son moved back to Bergen only to return to Amsterdam in 1946 where they lived in an apartment across from the zoo Artis.

When the war ended Constant was able to expand and grow as an artist after years of captivity and limitations.

He liberated himself artistically and experimented with multiple techniques of art-making.

He was inspired by Cubism, especially by Georges Braque.

In 1946 his daughter Martha was born, followed by his daughter Olga in 1948.

In 1946 Constant travelled to Paris for the first time where he met the young Danish painter Asger Jorn.

The friendship between Jorn and Constant later formed the basis for the avant-garde movement CoBrA.

July 1948 Constant founded Reflex with Corneille, Karel Appel and his brother Jan Nieuwenhuys.

The first edition of the magazine Reflex was published with a manifesto written by Constant.

For Constant art had to be experimental.

He had deducted this from the French word 'expérience' and believed that art springs from experience of the artist and is continuously changing.

In the manifesto he stated that the process of creation is more important to the experimental artist than the work itself; it is a means to reach spiritual and mental enrichment.

Also, the work of experimental artists is a mirror image of changes in the general perception of beauty.

Constant, Corneille and Appel, three totally different characters and artists, were united in their quest for innovation.