Untitled (1960) Klaas van den Erve

photo Otto Snoek
About the artwork

The building on the corner of Karel Doormanstraat and Oude Binnenweg dates from 1953 and on the ground floor contains a facade mosaic made in 1960 by Klaas van den Erve. It is a fairly exceptional work for this artist, who continued to work as a draftsman and lithographer. It is the only wall work known to the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands. His background is reflected in this work, which is conceived as an abstract line drawing. Completely non-figurative, it is also innovative in the technique, because it places large holes in the wall. The composition seems to go beyond the set architectural frameworks, is brutally intersected by the window and these were the conscious choices of the artist. It is a very expressive and powerful whole, more graphically linear than that of many contemporaries who had a background as a sculptor or painter, for example. That makes this work quite special.

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About the artist

Klaas van den Erve (Rotterdam, 1912 – Rotterdam, 1992) was a lithographer, draftsman and drawing teacher. He lived in Rotterdam. He made one facade mosaic on the Karel Doormanstraat in the center of Rotterdam, but little else is known about him.

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