Dick Beer - Stormy Weather in St.Arnoult

Dick Beer (b. London 1893 - d. Stockholm 1938) 

Stormy Weather in St.Arnoult

oil on canvas
signed and dated Dick Beer 1917
canvas dimensions 98 x 77 cm 

Exhibited:
Solo exhibition, Stockholm, Nov-Dec 1917;
The Royal Academy Stockholm 1973;
Millesgården – Dick Beer – Impressionist & Kubist, 2012

Provenance:
Within the family Beer until today

Dick Beer (1893-1938)

Dick Beer was born in London in 1893. His father, John Beer (1853-1906), was a Swedish painter from Stockholm who had a career mainly as a watercolour painter with motifs of horses from racetracks and fox hunts from the countryside.

Barely fifteen years old, Dick Beer became an orphan and came to Sweden in 1907. Already in 1908-1909, he started at Althin's painting school in Stockholm. And later, at the Royal Academy of Arts from 1910-1912. His teachers were, among others, Gustaf Cederström, Oscar Björk and Alfred Bergström. 

At this time, Many artists went to Paris, and Dick Beer wasn't an exception; he rented a studio and took every spare time to visit academies such as Colarossi and Grande Chaumière and André Lhote. 

Dick Beer travels to Pont Aven in Brittany over the summer of 1913. In September, he went directly to Stockholm for his first solo exhibition with the French title Exposition des tableaux de Bretagne et autour de Paris; The exhibition was a big success with many visitors. 

From the beginning of 1913, Dick Beer travels in France and paints in towns and in the countryside. He was inspired by the impressionists, who painted their immediate impressions, that which the eye fastens on in the open air. Dick Beer often depicted nature; studies of trees, shrubbery, vistas or natural phenomena. Other motifs include streets lined with houses. The human figures are often relegated to the background. The vistas are predominantly represented in a range of clear colours in which the motif is accentuated by sharp contours. Here, Dick Beer has also garnered ideas from artists who challenged traditional impressionism, such as Paul Cézanne who, with his geometric landscapes, was a precursor of the cubists. Landscapes by Vincent van Gogh are also discernible in, for example, “Stormy weather in St. Arnoult”. Dick Beer was also influenced by pointillist painting, in which the motifs were constructed by juxtaposed dots of pure paint.

1914-1917: First World War:

In the spring of 1914, Dick Beer undertook a longer study trip to Italy, Tunisia, Morocco and Spain.

When the French army mobilized, Dick Beer volunteered and was accepted into the French Foreign Legion. He was severely injured at Souain in September 1915, and the war injuries left him with severe deafness and nerve problems, which became increasingly noticeable over the years. During and after the war, he painted in a post-impressionistic style with a light palette, increasingly tuned in blue and green.