Lucebert

Dutch illustrator and the poet-painter of the Cobra and Fifties movement.

Lucebert was the son of the house painter and waiter Lubertus Jacobus Swaanswijk (28 May 1902) and Johanna Kalf (1891), a barmaid. They married 14 October 1914 in Amsterdam and got three sons. The marriage was unhappy: there were financial problems and quarrels and when Lucebert was only 2 years old, his mother left the family. They divorced officially on 31 December 1927 in Amsterdam. After four difficult years, his father remarried on 12 June 1930 the Catholic Hendrika Johanna Wilsens (18 April 1892, Vught), an early widowed house keeper without children.

Until age 13, Lucebert lived in the Jordaan area of Amsterdam, which had then a typical Labour neighbourhood with a mixed population, including poor immigrant Jews. He became at young age interested in alchemy. His father played on 24 November 1928 the role of Sint Nicolaas in Amsterdam, but there is little reason to believe that his youth was happy. He followed the ULO Trade school from 1936-39, where two teachers formed him: The teacher of German letters G.F.J.C. Bering stimulated his love for romantic poetry and letters. The other was the SDAP member and socialistic painter, lithographer and Concertgebouw clarinet player Johan van Hell (28 February 1889, A'dam – 31 Dec 1952, A'dam). Van Hell recognised his talent and gave him private lessons in painting.

After the ULO (summer 1939), Lucebert had to work in his fathers house painting company. His talent for painting was rediscovered by a passenger, when he just made some painting on a wall. With a grant he was allowed to study at the "Instituut voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs" (art school) in Amsterdam. The director, the Bauhaus architect and designer Mart Stam (5 August 1899, Purmerend – 23 February 1986, Goldach), made him aware of Dada and surrealisms, but after four months of art study, his father abruptly ended it, as he had to work for bread to sustain the poor family.