To mark the 100th anniversary of Theo Wolvecamp’s birth, Museum Cobra presents a festive exhibition linking the work of this influential but modest Cobra artist with that of Iranian-Dutch artist and guest curator Sam Samiee.
Theo Wolvecamp (Hengelo 1925 – Amsterdam 1992) is often described as an artist who deliberately kept to the sidelines. Unlike his Cobra colleagues, he worked outside the spotlight and stayed true to his own path, far away from the noise of publicity. Yet he was a driving force within the movement. Wolvecamp devoted his life to one of Cobra’s core principles: free, spontaneous painting in which improvisation and experimentation play the leading role. His work was always sincere, free of external appearances, and found its strength in the intuition and spontaneity with which it was created.
What makes Wolvecamp unique is the combination of the mythical and the material. He saw paint not just as a tool, but as a living material with which he brought his own world to life. He admired artists such as Asger Jorn, who he felt perfectly captured this balance between content and form. Miró and Alechinsky were also great sources of inspiration, but Wolvecamp’s work continues to unmistakably carry his own voice: raw, spontaneous and sensitive.
Sam Samiee, winner of the 2018 Wolvecamp Prize, sees Wolvecamp as an important source of inspiration. Like his predecessor, he approaches painting as a free, experimental process, but he also brings in new perspectives. In his work, European painting traditions merge with Persian cultural references, and he explores the boundaries of the medium by expanding painting into installations and spatial interventions.
His expressive use of color, dynamic brushwork and layered textures create an experience that is both sensory and intellectually stimulating. In doing so, like Wolvecamp, he seeks a balance between spontaneous creation and deeper layers of content. In this exhibition, Samiee links not only the heritage of Cobra to contemporary art, but also to broader cultural connections, such as the influence of Iranian artists on Western art history and the narrative nature of One Thousand and One Nights.
About Theo Wolvecamp
Theo Wolvecamp began painting at an early age. In 1947, after two years, he left the art academy in Arnhem, where he felt restricted by academic rules, and moved to Amsterdam. There he threw everything he had learned earlier overboard and became involved as the youngest co-founder in the Experimental Group in Holland and in 1948 in the Cobra movement. From 1953 to 1954 Wolvecamp lived in Paris and then returned to his hometown of Hengelo.
Wolvecamp was a man of nature. He did not limit himself to figuration or abstraction; feeling was more important to him than what was depicted. To him, painting was like hunting: a search for a hidden emotion or idea that only presented itself during the painting process. He aptly described it himself: “I hit with a stick and it (game) comes out. Something similar plays out in painting. It comes from within and yet it goes outside of you.
About Sam Samiee
Sam Samiee (born Tehran, 1988) is an Iranian-Dutch multidisciplinary artist, painter, essayist and researcher. His work combines painting, installation and curatorial practice, drawing on European painting traditions and Persian culture. He engages in psychoanalysis and cultural history and explores the intersections between Western and non-Western art. His immersive, conceptually rich compositions invite the viewer to actively participate.
Samiee studied at the Art University in Tehran, AKI ArtEZ Academy of Art & Design in Enschede and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. His work was shown at the 10th Berlin Biennale and at Kunstmuseum Den Haag, among others, and is included in several collections, including Centraal Museum Utrecht and Kadist Art Foundation. Samiee received the Royal Dutch Painting Prize and the Wolvecamp Prize and was a juror for both hereafter.
Sam Samiee