Nikolaas Mathijs Eekman (1889-1973) - La mère et son enfant

Oil on canvas, depicting a mother and her child signed

Nikolaas Mathijs Eekman (1889-1973) Nico EEKMAN

Nicolas Mathieu Eekman (in Dutch: Nikolaas Mathijs Eekman), born August 9, 1889 in Brussels and died November 13, 1973 in Paris, is a Dutch figurative painter and engraver, also known in France, Belgium and the Netherlands under the name Nico Eekman, Nic Eekman and under the pseudonym Ekma. He is also an engraver, draftsman, watercolourist and illustrator[1],[2].

He illustrated many books, notably The Destinies of Alfred de Vigny (1933), Tales of a Beer Drinker by Charles Deulin (1945), Tyl Ulenspiegel by Charles De Coster (1946), The Donkey in Breeches by Henri Bosco (1950).

His style is characterized by three major periods: expressionist between 1914 and the late 1920s, Flemish realism until the early 1950s, then the fantastical.

Biography
Nicolas Eekman was born in Brussels[3] in the house where Victor Hugo, then in exile, began writing Les Misérables[4]. He was the son of Thomas Adam Eekman, born in Vlissingen, and Ibeltje van den Berg, born in Gouda[5]. Nicolas’s elder sister, named Kato Ibeltje Eekman, born in Brussels in 1882, would marry in Brussels[6] in 1910 the Dutch Protestant pastor Annee Rinzes de Jong.

At the age of 18, he gave his first lecture in Brussels devoted to “Van Gogh, this unknown,” a painter who, in 1907, was still largely unknown to the general public. In 1912, he attended the first Vincent van Gogh exhibition in Cologne, a decisive experience.

After obtaining his architecture diploma from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels, he was invited by his friend pastor Bart de Ligt to stay during World War I at the parsonage in Nuenen, the Netherlands. It was there that thirty years earlier the van Gogh family lived; Vincent notably created The Potato Eaters[7]. Until the end of the war, exhibitions multiplied in the country and Eekman was the subject of numerous acquisitions by major Dutch museums and collectors, including Helene and Anton Kröller-Müller.

In 1921, Eekman settled in Paris, and would continue to exhibit in France and abroad[8]. He moved in circles with Dutch and Belgian artists living in Paris such as Fred Klein, Piet Mondrian, César Domela, Georges Vantongerloo and Frans Masereel. He befriended gallery owner Jeanne Bucher who exhibited him in 1928 with Mondrian. It was the only time Mondrian would show his paintings in a gallery in Paris. These two men, whose views on art diverged—Mondrian a promoter of abstract art and Eekman violently opposed to it—would remain linked by an unwavering friendship throughout their lives.

In the 1930s, Eekman regularly participated in group exhibitions, notably in the United States[9], and his solo exhibitions were organized throughout Europe.

During the interwar period, Eekman participated in Paris’s artistic life, then at the heart of Montparnasse, and frequented Jean Lurçat, Louis Marcoussis, André Lhote, Max Jacob, Moïse Kisling, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Armand Nakache, Paul Signac, Jacques Lipchitz, Fernand Léger, Edouard Goerg, Max Ernst, among others[10],[11],[12].

During the Paris International Exposition of 1937, Eekman won a gold medal for his painting The Blue Ball, later acquired by the State for the Jeu de Paume Museum.

At the beginning of World War II, he was sought by the Nazis and took refuge in Saint-Jean-de-Luz where he signed his works temporarily under the pseudonym Ekma[11].

In 1944, the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels organized a very important exhibition of Eekman to which Queen Elisabeth of Belgium attended.

In the 1950s and 1960s, exhibitions followed at a steady pace in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland. At the 1956 Deauville International Exhibition, he received the “Prix du Nu” (Nude Prize).

In 1961, a large mural panel (2.50 × 1.40 m) was commissioned from him by Professor Henri Griffon on the theme of medicinal plants in the world[13]. This work was executed for the pharmacy of the Paris Orly airport’s terminal.

Shortly after, a major retrospective at the Reflets gallery in Brussels, Nicolas Eekman died on November 13, 1973 in Paris. He is buried in Ivry-sur-Seine Cemetery (21st division)[10].

Under the impulse of his daughter, the architect Luce Eekman, the association Le Sillon Nicolas Eekman[14] was created in 1989 and is dedicated to preserving the memory and work of the painter by organizing exhibitions, notably at the Atelier Grognard in Rueil-Malmaison, at the Palais de l'Europe in Menton, at the Taylor Foundation in Paris[15], at the Maison Descartes (Institute of the Netherlands) in Amsterdam, at the town hall of Nuenen in the Netherlands and at the Museum of Drawing and Original Print in Gravelines.

Exhibitions
Individual exhibitions
From around 1920 to 1928, a series of solo exhibitions was organized by Bavaria Verlag in Munich, in the following cities: Hanover, Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, Mulheim, Budapest, Vienna, Basel, Essen.

Dimensions of the work: unframed: 60 cm x 46 cm

The work is signed bottom left and countersigned on the back of the canvas

Auction results for Nikolaas Mathijs EEKMAN in Painting:

Nikolaas Mathijs EEKMAN (1889-1973)
“Maternity"

Lot No. 95
Painting
Oil on canvas
59 x 46 cm
Hammer price: €650
Price with fees: €818
Estimate: €700 - €900
Art and Antiques
09/09/2025
Vanderkindere
Brussels, Belgium
Details
Signed "Eekman" bottom left
Reproduced page 49 of the catalogue

The Mascot Bird (1946)
Nikolaas Mathijs EEKMAN
Oil on canvas
65 x 49 cm
Estimate: €3,500 - €5,000
Hammer price: €6,800
20/03/2017
Horta
“The Fairground Magician".
Nikolaas Mathijs EEKMAN
Oil on panel
55 x 46 cm
Estimate: €2,500 - €3,500
Hammer price: €6,500
19/11/2012
Horta
The Half-Masks
Nikolaas Mathijs EEKMAN
Oil on canvas
73 x 54 cm
Estimate: €2,000 - €3,000
Hammer price: €6,200
05/12/2006
Vanderkindere
The Shoemaker (1947)
Nikolaas Mathijs EEKMAN
Oil on panel
55 x 46 cm
Estimate: €2,975 - €3,470
Hammer price: €5,949
04/04/2000
Campo & Campo