Kees van Urk

Kees van Urk (Cees van Urk) was born on March 26, 1895, in the Dutch city of Leiden. He applied to the Hague Academy of Arts succesfully and thus became a pupil of painter and etcher M. W. v. d. Valk. In Leiden he established in collaboration a group called "The Sphinx". The group was known to participate actively in the organisation of a number of exhibitions of Leiden artists. Because of a temporary position as president of this organisation, he came into contact with great names as Piet Mondriaan, Rietveld(the architect) and van Doesburg. Later in his life he became a member of the "the Ten" association of artists, as founded by August Legras. Urk has held exhibitions in Rotterdam, Haarlem, Arnhem and even in Vienna, Paris and Warsaw. A selection of etchings, lithographs and watercolourpaintings of his hand are in the collections of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Urk was said to possess a great devotion to his art and used it as a medium to obtain a sense of true understanding and perfection of life.

He explored all kinds of art forms and styles, managing to shape them to his own personal shape each time. In addition to this, Urk maintained a gallery of his own by the name of "The Arc" in the Dutch city of Blaricum, because he did not want to be bound by a gallery owner. Although he has used many styles of working, such as 19th century Turner-like landscapes, Cubism, or even Oriental forms of art, his work never lost its sense of "individuality".