Zwevende stier - Lucebert

A striking expressionist work by Dutch artist Lucebert, featuring a floating bull and distorted figures rendered in a spontaneous, gestural style.

Lucebert, born Lubertus Jacobus Swaanswijk, was a central figure in the Dutch post-war avant-garde. As a poet and painter, he brought a raw, unmediated energy to his visual work, often associated with the CoBrA movement. This piece, titled Zwevende stier, demonstrates his characteristic approach to figuration, where forms appear to emerge from a subconscious state rather than a structured observation of reality.

The composition is divided into distinct zones. A bull, rendered in muted, earthy tones, occupies the upper portion of the frame, suspended against a field of rhythmic, blue brushstrokes. Below, a distorted, mask-like face sits alongside a second, pink-hued creature. The application of paint is direct and gestural, with visible brushwork that prioritises immediate expression over technical refinement. The colour palette is dominated by soft pinks and blues, which contrast with the more grounded, ochre-toned bull.

Lucebert often utilised a childlike, spontaneous aesthetic to bypass traditional artistic conventions. His work frequently features hybrid creatures and enigmatic figures that defy simple narrative interpretation. In this work, the juxtaposition of the floating bull with the lower figures creates a sense of dreamlike displacement. The surface texture is varied, with layers of gouache creating a tactile quality that remains true to his experimental methods. This print captures the immediacy of his original gouache, preserving the spontaneity of his mark-making and the specific chromatic balance of the composition. It offers a clear view into the artist's late-career style, where his earlier, more aggressive CoBrA-era intensity softened into a more lyrical, yet still unsettling, form of expression.