| Erwin de Vries |
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Erwin de Vries December 21, 1929, Paramaribo www.erwindevries.com "A great many people are born with a talent. But the question is: What do you do with your talent?” Erwin de Vries lists the qualities that are required – in his opinion – to reach higher levels of creative art, apart from a fair share of creative talent. “First of all you should be obsessed by it; spend the entire day doing nothing but drawing, painting and working. Some people are born artists; they are quite different from others who exhibit their work and then hurriedly produce some more work. And, supposing you do have that drive and obsession, my next question is: how long before you give up?” Erwin de Vries has kept the torch of his artistic calling aflame for many years now. He takes his first drawings lessons at the age of sixteen, as a student of the ELKA art school, led by Arthur Gorré and Egbert Lieveld. Uncle Wim Bos Verschuur encourages Erwin to have his first exhibition. And he goes on to convince Mr. De Vries that he ought to send his son Erwin to the Netherlands to study for a teacher’s degree in drawing. “Hardly two weeks after I had started studying in the Netherlands the teacher stopped at my desk, lifted up my drawing for everyone to see and exclaimed: ‘This is what I have in mind when I am talking about coloring!’ At that moment I became aware that there was indeed some perspective for me. I went to school to learn, and almost right away my work was used as an example to show how it was supposed to be.” Erwin de Vries has had two solo exhibitions in the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum. The first one was in 1970 and the second one was on the occasion of his 50th anniversary as a creative artist in 1998. He exhibited together with world famous artists such as Picasso, Zadkine and Henry Moore. His work was exhibited in Mexico, New York and Jamaica. There are numerous sculptures by Erwin de Vries on display in the Netherlands, like for instance the Nationaal Monument Slavernijverleden in the Oosterpark, Amsterdam. Sculptures on display in the open air in Surinam are De Ontdekker and a statue of the late statesman Jaggernath Lachmon, LL M. Women are the leitmotiv in De Vries’ oeuvre. The bold, full shapes, the magnificent movements and the intense coloring are typical of his style. He likes variations. “Sometimes my work is almost realistic, sometimes it is abstract. One day it is expressive and another day it is one-dimensional.” Erwin de Vries paints swiftly, expressing his feelings. His colleagues praise his ability to capture the essence of his subjects intuitively. To Erwin de Vries it is essential that one should reach beyond the borders of one’s country, one should broaden one’s horizons. “If I had remained in Surinam, I would now be standing at the Waterkant peddling paintings of waterfalls. And what’s more: where would I have acquired the knowledge and skills to make the enormous sculptures I have made?" © Text: Marieke Visser, in: Talent. Uit de kunstcollectie van de Centrale Bank van Suriname, Paramaribo (Centrale Bank van Suriname) 2007. © English translation: Anne-Marie Reeder Back to Honorary Members |