By Ed de Heer
Veldhoen’s aptitude for drawing revealed itself at an early age. As a child he was always busy with pencils, charcoal and chalk and he was barely fourteen years old when he was admitted to the training to become art teacher at the Rijksnormaalschool (National Teachers’ School) in Amsterdam. He received a thorough education in which a lot of attention was paid to traditional subjects, such as drawing from plaster statues and nude models. He also practiced subjects such as perspective and composition.
His earliest drawings reveal a certain bravado through their often large size and choice of subject. Veldhoen’s drawings cover the entire range between a sketchy, smoothly drawn first idea and fully developed drawings that can compete with independent works of art. Portraits of women form the lion’s share of Veldhoen’s drawn oeuvre. In addition to anonymous models, he mainly portrayed friends, acquaintances and family members.
His sketchbooks occupy a special position within his drawn oeuvre. In addition to recording spontaneous (artistic) ideas, the booklets served as scrapbook, photo album and notebook.
Veldhoen’s aptitude for drawing revealed itself at an early age. As a child he was always busy with pencils, charcoal and chalk and he was barely fourteen years old when he was admitted to the training to become art teacher at the Rijksnormaalschool (National Teachers’ School) in Amsterdam. He received a thorough education in which a lot of attention was paid to traditional subjects, such as drawing from plaster statues and nude models. He also practiced subjects such as perspective and composition.
His earliest drawings reveal a certain bravado through their often large size and choice of subject. Veldhoen’s drawings cover the entire range between a sketchy, smoothly drawn first idea and fully developed drawings that can compete with independent works of art. Portraits of women form the lion’s share of Veldhoen’s drawn oeuvre. In addition to anonymous models, he mainly portrayed friends, acquaintances and family members.
His sketchbooks occupy a special position within his drawn oeuvre. In addition to recording spontaneous (artistic) ideas, the booklets served as scrapbook, photo album and notebook.
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