Leo Gestel in Mallorca

Leo Gestel on Mallorca offers a unique overview of the spectacular and colorful work that painter Leo Gestel created during his stay on Mallorca in 1914. Gestel spent four months on the Spanish island and, mesmerized by the landscape, rapidly produced a large number of sketches and paintings. The series of works represents an experimental high point in modern Dutch art, but has never before been brought together in an exhibition. Leo Gestel is considered one of the great innovators of visual art in the Netherlands. His drive for innovation is fully expressed in his depictions of the hills, orchards, bays, and harbors of Mallorca. Guest curator and Gestel expert Caroline Roodenburg-Schadd put together the exhibition with a large number of loans from Dutch and foreign museums and from art and private collections.

Obsessed with nature

While painting outdoors near Bergen in the fall of 1913, Gestel made plans with his girlfriend An Overtoom and fellow painters Else Berg and Mommie Schwarz to continue working in a warmer climate. They chose Mallorca, where they stayed for four months in 1914. Art collector Piet Boendermaker and his wife Marie also joined them for a short time. Gestel did not exactly behave like a tourist in Mallorca; he worked like a man possessed and became completely absorbed in nature. With his artist’s eye, he examined the light, the land, and the surrounding water on the island. He dissects everything with an analytical eye, searching for structure and rhythm. And in bright, sometimes translucent colors, he brings the light to life. His urge to experiment receives an important new impulse, and with his abstract style, partly derived from Cubism and Futurism, he reaches a peak in his oeuvre.

After a subsequent stay in Madrid, the painters returned to the Netherlands in July. Shortly afterwards, the First World War broke out, bringing an end to international exchanges. Gestel will establish himself in the Netherlands as one of the core members of the Bergen School. The exhibition features several works by Else Berg and Mommie Schwarz, also created in Mallorca, as well as works that Gestel made on his return during a stay in the city of Madrid. They further emphasize how strongly the Mallorcan landscape inspired Gestel in particular.

Book

The richly illustrated book Leo Gestel in Mallorca – which includes an overview of all his works – conveys how the painter was overwhelmed by the unfamiliar landscape, how he understood it, and made it his own. It draws international parallels with artists such as Paul Klee and Henri Matisse, who also traveled at that time. Above all, it is about the important role that travel played in Gestel’s own life and development. In retrospect, the fact that this was his last, carefree burst of youthful experimentation gives his sparkling Mallorca paintings an extra dimension.

Caroline Roodenburg-Schadd, Leo Gestel in Mallorca, Waanders Publishers, 2022. Available from April 16, 2022, in the museum shop of Museum Kranenburgh and in bookshops. Price €23.95.