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Aat Veldhoen 1934 - 2018
Représenté par:
Christian Ouwens Gallery
Aat Veldhoen, known to us simply as “Aatje,” embraced life exactly as it presented itself, without embellishment. During the 1950s and 1960s, he established his reputation with the prints he called *rotaprints*. Through them, he revealed the raw heart of Amsterdam: the sick, the deceased, friends, drifters, and equally the fragile intimacy of lovers. Everything was treated with the same seriousness, the same attention.
He disliked the pretensions of the art world. Art, he believed, should not be locked away in what he called “white shoeboxes”, his nickname for galleries. Instead, he sold his prints on the street for just a few guilders. Some found this shocking, but it only increased his popularity: here was an artist returning the city to the people who lived in it.
His gaze was sharp, at times uncompromising. There was no sentimentality, only the rough edges that belong to life itself. In this way, he became a chronicler of the city, a draftsman, painter, and witness. Even later, when his work grew more colourful, the same curiosity remained, and experimentation was never far away. Yet his name remained most closely associated with those early prints: socially engaged, honest, and unadorned.
Many referred to him as the first modern Dutch “people’s artist,” a title he would likely have met with little more than a shrug.
Christian Ouwens worked closely with Aat Veldhoen for many years. The unconventional character of the gallery was a perfect match for Aat’s independent spirit. Together they organised exhibitions of his etchings, printed by the artist’s own hand, alongside drawings that had often remained unseen for decades. Christian collected them, had them carefully restored, and framed them with great attention.
Yet when Aat finally saw the results, his stubbornness resurfaced: he no longer felt any desire to sell them.
To everyone’s relief, a solution was eventually found, allowing the public to enjoy Veldhoen’s virtuoso hand for many years to come. Virtuoso indeed, swift, confident, and remarkably precise. Even after a stroke left his drawing hand paralysed, he taught himself to work with the other hand in a remarkably short time. The drawings remained detailed, perhaps even more sensitive than before.
He disliked the pretensions of the art world. Art, he believed, should not be locked away in what he called “white shoeboxes”, his nickname for galleries. Instead, he sold his prints on the street for just a few guilders. Some found this shocking, but it only increased his popularity: here was an artist returning the city to the people who lived in it.
His gaze was sharp, at times uncompromising. There was no sentimentality, only the rough edges that belong to life itself. In this way, he became a chronicler of the city, a draftsman, painter, and witness. Even later, when his work grew more colourful, the same curiosity remained, and experimentation was never far away. Yet his name remained most closely associated with those early prints: socially engaged, honest, and unadorned.
Many referred to him as the first modern Dutch “people’s artist,” a title he would likely have met with little more than a shrug.
Christian Ouwens worked closely with Aat Veldhoen for many years. The unconventional character of the gallery was a perfect match for Aat’s independent spirit. Together they organised exhibitions of his etchings, printed by the artist’s own hand, alongside drawings that had often remained unseen for decades. Christian collected them, had them carefully restored, and framed them with great attention.
Yet when Aat finally saw the results, his stubbornness resurfaced: he no longer felt any desire to sell them.
To everyone’s relief, a solution was eventually found, allowing the public to enjoy Veldhoen’s virtuoso hand for many years to come. Virtuoso indeed, swift, confident, and remarkably precise. Even after a stroke left his drawing hand paralysed, he taught himself to work with the other hand in a remarkably short time. The drawings remained detailed, perhaps even more sensitive than before.
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