Leo Gestel
"Gezicht op boerderij met werkende boeren, Blaricum"
LEO GESTEL
Woerden 1881-1941 Hilversum
FARM IN BLARICUM
1929
Tempera on board
61 x 75.5 cm.
Signed and dated: lower right "Leo Gestel 1929 Blaricum".
Leo Gestel initially earned his living with advertising design – the work for Philips is well known – and illustrations for magazines. Because of his high drawing skills, his colleagues called him ‘Leonardo’ (in short ‘Leo’) Gestel, to the Italian homo universalis. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Gestel was one of Hollands’ most modern artists. With his kubistic and futuristic experiments, he was a forerunner of modern art. After working in Mallorca and Bergen in a kubistic an expressionist style, Gestel left for Vlaanderen in 1925. He stayed here for two years and his work flattened and stylized under influence of Frits Van den Berghe, Gustave De Smet en Constant Permeke. With his return to The Netherlands, Gestel moved to Blaricum where he could study horses and cows in the rural environment. He also devoted himself to figures and mostly worked on paper. He could express himself in pastel and tempera. In his work from the twenties and thirties is a return to naturalism visible, which fits the general trend in modern art of that time, called retour à l’ordre. Classic motifs and techniques became important and Gestels work showed voluminous figures.