O. (OTTO) VAN REES

Biography

O. (OTTO) VAN REES
1884 Freiburg (Dld.) - 1957 Utrecht

O. (Otto) van Rees was a Dutch painter, draughtsman, printmaker, and illustrator who held a distinctive place within the European avant-garde of the early twentieth century. Raised in an intellectual, socialist milieu in the Gooi region of the Netherlands, Van Rees studied under Herman Heijenbrock and Jan Toorop before, on Toorop's advice, departing for Paris in 1904. Through the artistic circles around Le Lapin Agile in Montmartre, he formed close ties with Picasso, Braque, and Kees van Dongen, and secured a studio in the Bateau Lavoir. His work evolved in dialogue with the successive modernist currents of the period, moving from neo-impressionism and Fauvism into Cubism. During the First World War, he relocated to Switzerland, where in November 1915 he and his wife, textile artist Adya Dutilh, exhibited alongside Hans Arp at the Galerie Tanner in Zurich. This exhibition is widely regarded as the founding moment of the Dada movement. In the early 1930s, he participated in the Parisian group Cercle et Carré. Following a devastating train crash in France in 1919, in which their eldest daughter was killed, Van Rees gradually returned to the Netherlands. In his later years, he worked primarily in Utrecht, focusing on portraiture, still life and religious subjects. He died on 19 May 1957 from injuries sustained in a road accident.