- Portrait
: - Figure composition
: - child(ren) »
- male »
Willem Frederik and Mien Bon, close friends of Nicolaas and Berendina Urban, commissioned this portrait of their son Wim (Willem Frederik Bon, 1904–1990) in order to help Philippe Smit, who was then in a precarious financial situation.The father, very conservative in matters of art, found the portrait too expressionistic and was greatly disappointed with the result, which had nevertheless cost him 5,000 guilders. He subsequently asked the painter to redo it (see [PS 141]).
The young Willem Frederik Bon, who would later study biochemistry and make a name for himself as a filmmaker, showed artistic talent from an early age, already apparent at the time this portrait was executed. In 1941, on the occasion of an exhibition of Bon's works at the Santee Landweer gallery in Amsterdam, the art critic Kasper Niehaus highlighted this precocity as well as his close relationship with Philippe Smit:
"As a young lad between the ages of ten and fourteen, Willem Bon filled dozens of sketchbooks with scribbles: war fantasies and ships. His first attempt at oil painting, depicting 'little Japanese girls,' dates from 1916. At that time, and for a long time thereafter, he was a fervent admirer of the painter Philippe Smit, who gave him much good advice regarding the choice of colours, the alla prima (direct) method of painting, and the composition of a picture, etc. However, Philippe Smit was not his teacher in the usual sense of the word: he gave him exclusively technical pointers. Bon is still grateful to him for having kept him away from all academic pedantry and 'style' formation. On the other hand, Smit spoke to him a great deal and showed him many works by Corot, Daumier, Millet, Van Gogh, Cézanne, and Picasso, for whom he acquired a deep respect."1
1. Kasper Niehaus, "Willem Bon, een chemicus die schildert: Expositie Santee Landweer," De Telegraaf, Avondblad, 12-11-1941, p. 2.
