Untitled (1969) Cor Dam
This self-titled concrete relief was created in the percentage scheme. Visual artist Cor Dam was commissioned to build the De Kolk retirement home on Havenstraat in Delfshaven. The Kolk was designed by architect J. Noorlander. On August 4, 1967, the first pile was driven in and the home was officially opened on October 16, 1969. The colored facade relief has been beautifully preserved. The enormous wall of approximately 15 by 2.50 meters is located next to the main entrance in the low-rise building of the home. Dam has used different shapes, colors and depths, making it seem as if the relief consists of various parts. It gives an interesting layering to the artwork. The abstract work also goes around the corner, so that you can look at it from different points of view. Dam used soft tones for the work, especially pink, red and ocher yellow in combination with gray and white. The concrete relief is signed in a prominent place on the front by the artist. In 2020, the work was repainted by the current owner of the building, Stichting Ouderenhuisvesting Rotterdam (SOR).
Cor Dam (Delft, 1935 – Delft, 2019) was educated at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, decorative department. He then studied sculpture at the architecture department of the Delft University of Technology, under extraordinary professor (and sculptor) Oswald Wenckebach. Dam was not only a sculptor, but also a painter, draftsman and monumental artist. After his studies he worked from 1950 to 1969 as a ceramist and designer at De Porceleyne Fles in Delft. He made almost non-figurative designs, many wavy lines, initially organic in which he said he still recognized human figures. He already made grand gestures back then, which later becomes even more apparent in both monumental work and late free objects. In 2004 Dam has another exhibition in a gallery in Woudrichem with images that move between figuration and abstraction and are built up of large robust forms. In bronze, wood and ceramics, his sculptures are about color, structure, skin and matter with some main shapes such as triangles, rectangles and lines. He has also worked as a painter and draftsman and has been a teacher at TU Delft since 1988.