Jaap Mooy (1915-1987) - Zonder titel

Abstract work by the artist Jaap Mooy. Mixed technique on cardboard. Supplied with a monogram (JM) and a year (62). The work is still in its original frame. On the back, bearing the label of Kunsthandel Gazendam from Groningen.

Provenance

Atelier Jaap Mooy, Bergen
Kunsthandel Gazendam, Groningen
Collectie Alex Mulder, Zuidhorn

Jaap Mooy was an idiosyncratic and influential Dutch sculptor, painter and draughtsman. He lived and worked for most of his life in the well-known artists’ village of Bergen (North Holland), where he was a key figure within the KunstenaarsCentrumBergen (KCB). He closely collaborated with artists such as Lucebert and Jaap Wagemaker. In the late 1950s and early 1960s Mooy experienced his international breakthrough with intense, material-like abstract compositions and ‘action painting’. His work was exhibited in that period in leading museums such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and even in New York.

The connection with Kunsthandel Gazendam
Although Mooy was based in Bergen, he had a strong and direct link to Groningen. Kunsthandel Gazendam (led by Jurjen Gazendam) in the 1960s was not merely a local Groningen shop, but one of the most important players in the Northern Netherlands for modern and avant-garde art. They actively brought the work of the leading Dutch innovators to the North.

The link with the Groninger Museum: In the 1960s there was intensive exchange between the progressive art scene in Bergen and Groningen. This later even resulted in Jaap Mooy receiving a major solo exhibition at the Groninger Museum in autumn 1968.

Kunsthandel Gazendam served as the official sales channel for this kind of museum-worthy pieces in Groningen. This painting from 1962 was most likely purchased or consigned directly from Mooy’s studio by Gazendam, or acquired around his exhibitions in the North.