Marinus Bies (1894-1975) - Winterlandschap

This atmospheric, expressionist painting depicts a snow-covered landscape with a hidden farm, surrounded by dark, bare trees. The work is characterized by a restrained color palette of deep greens, browns, and blacks, which contrast strongly with the light snow patches in the foreground and on the roofs. The looming, almost mysterious sky enhances the melancholic and tranquil mood of the winter landscape. With powerful, loose brushstrokes and an expressive handling of paint, the artist has managed to create a remarkable depth and dynamism. The rough texture and the contrast between light and dark areas give the landscape an almost tangible quality. The painting radiates both loneliness and calm and compellingly captures the silence and pristine beauty of a wintry environment.

Executed in oil on canvas, signed in the lower left ‘Bies’. Dimensions of the work about 60 × 80 cm; with frame about 74 × 94 cm.
Provenance: private collection, F. de V., Eindhoven.

Artist biography
Marinus Bies (Aarle-Rixtel, 1894–1975), full name Martinus Johannes Bies, was a Dutch painter and draftsman whose oeuvre is closely linked to the Brabant landscape and, in particular, the Peel. He studied with Arnold Marc Gorter and Jan Kruysen and developed a powerful, freely painted visual language in which landscape, color, and atmosphere are central. From 1933 he worked as a professional artist. In 1938 and 1939 Bies participated in group exhibitions; during this period the Van Abbemuseum acquired a Peel landscape by him. His work was subsequently exhibited at the Rijksmuseum. On the occasion of his hundredth birth anniversary, Museum Kempenland Eindhoven organized an exhibition around his oeuvre in 1994. In 2025, his fiftieth death anniversary in the Peel region was commemorated with a series of exhibitions in which his landscape art was central."