Art piece of the month: April

Ger Lataster – Icarus Atlanticus (1955)
oil on canvas

Like several other Limburg artists, Ger Lataster settled in Amsterdam in the 1940s. He was part of a group that studied at the Rijksakademie under Heinrich Campendonk, often referred to as the Amsterdam Limburgers. A defining feature of Lataster’s work is the close relationship between form and content.

With expressive use of color and bold, impasto brushstrokes, Lataster conveyed the emotions evoked in him by reality. Over the years, his work became more abstract, both in form and subject. A sense of dramatic tension often emerges, fueled by memories of the war and reflections on transience.

Later, more figurative elements returned, along with a change in his painting style. The composition does not form a harmonious whole, but a space filled with objects and figures whose symbolic meaning gradually gives way to a more concrete reality. Icarus Atlanticus is considered part of lyrical expressionism.