Pat Andrea (1942) - Livre piégé

From our own collection - beautiful work by Pat Andrea.

Pat Andrea - Book Trap 2010

The internationally acclaimed Dutch master painter Pat Andrea (born 1942) is one of the most prominent figures in European realism and the new figurative iconography.

Over a 40-year span, his work was seen in hundreds of exhibitions, including five retrospective exhibitions. His work is included in some of the world's most prestigious museum collections, including MoMA (New York), Centre Georges-Pompidou (Paris), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires), and the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam).

Andrea was born in 1942 in The Hague and studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague under Co Westerik. Together with Walter Nobbe and Peter Blokhuis he founded the ABN Group, known as the Nieuwe Haagse School, and in 1965 he held his first solo exhibition. In 1979 he was selected by art critic Jean Clair to participate in Nouvelle Subjectivité at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, alongside artists such as David Hockney, RB Kitaj and Sam Szafran. Andrea was a professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris from 1998 to 2007 and lives and works in Buenos Aires and Paris.

His paintings combine classic quality with a grim neo-expressionism, in which sexuality, fear, and desire blend seamlessly to produce images that are playful and yet disturbingly intense. One-act dramas about everyday human emotions, Andrea’s creations explore erotica and violence in raw but delicate portrayals of men and women.