Constant Anton Nieuwenhuys (21 July 1920 – 1 August 2005), better known as Constant, was a Dutch painter, sculptor, graphic artist, author and musician.
Constant was born in Amsterdam on 21 July 1920 as the first son of Pieter Nieuwenhuijs and Maria Cornelissen. Their second son, Jan Nieuwenhuys, was born a year later. Both sons became artists although their parents had no apparent interest in art.
As a young child Constant drew passionately and showed great talent. He read literature with a special preference for poetry and played musical instruments. During his teenage years he learned to sing and to read music while in the church choir at the Ignatius Gymnasium, a prestigious Jesuit school in Amsterdam. In his later years, greatly inspired by gypsy music, he only played improvised music. He played guitar, violin and at 45 years of age also mastered playing the cimbalon.
Constant painted his first oil painting, De Emmaüsgangers, at age sixteen. It depicted the revelation of Jesus to two of his followers in Emmaus. With no money to buy materials he painted this painting on a jute sugar bag with pigments he had bought from a house painter. Many of Constant's early drawings and paintings are religiously inspired, due to his Jesuit schooling. Yet at the age of twenty Constant turned his back on Catholicism.
After one year studying at the Kunstnijverheidsschool (Arts and Crafts School), Constant attended the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunst (State Academy of Fine Arts) from 1939 to 1941. This education in craftmanship was put to use especially during his "New Babylon" period, when Constant built many constructions and models.
Constant lived and worked in Bergen from 1941 to 1943. Through the Bergense School he was introduced to the work of Paul Cézanne, which impacted him deeply, as evident in Zelfportret (Self Portrait), 1942. On 13 July 1942 he married Matie van Domselaer, the daughter of the composer Jakob van Domselaer.
The city of Bergen was evacuated by the Germans in 1943 and so Constant and Matie moved back to Amsterdam. During this period Constant went into hiding and refrained from registering at the Kulturkammer (Nazi Chamber of Culture) to avoid the Arbeitseinsatz (labour supply for the Germans). Because of this he was unable to conventionally exercise his craft or to buy art supplies. To paint Constant used tablecloths and bed linen and had to rinse them out to start again.
During the war Constant's brother in law, Jaap van Domselaer, moved into the apartment to hide from the 'Arbeitseinsatz.' He introduced Constant to Plato, Spinoza, Descartes, Kant, Hegel and Marx. Especially the latter provided great inspiration to Constant regarding his later ideas on art and society.
During the winter famine of 1944 Constant's first son, Victor Nieuwenhuys, was born. After the war, Constant, his wife and son moved back to Bergen only to return to Amsterdam in 1946 where they lived in an apartment across from the zoo Artis. When the war ended Constant was able to expand and grow as an artist after years of captivity and limitations. He liberated himself artistically and experimented with multiple techniques of art-making. He was inspired by Cubism, especially by Georges Braque. In 1946 his daughter Martha was born, followed by his daughter Olga in 1948.
In 1946 Constant travelled to Paris for the first time where he met the young Danish painter Asger Jorn. The friendship between Jorn and Constant later formed the basis for the avant-garde movement CoBrA.
July 1948 Constant founded Reflex Experimentele Groep in Holland with Corneille, Karel Appel and his brother Jan Nieuwenhuys. The first edition of the magazine Reflex was published with a manifesto written by Constant. For Constant art had to be experimental. He had deducted this from the French word 'expérience' and believed that art springs from experience of the artist and is continuously changing. In the manifesto he stated that the process of creation is more important to the experimental artist than the work itself; it is a means to reach spiritual and mental enrichment. Also, the work of experimental artists is a mirror image of changes in the general perception of beauty.
Constant, Corneille and Appel, three totally different characters and artists, were united in their quest for innovation. They exhibited their work together and were often seen together in the European art scene. The wanderlust of the three is especially notorious.
Later in the year 1948 on the terrace of café Notre Dame in Paris the Experimentele Groep in Holland linked up with Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noiret from Belgium and Asger Jorn from Denmark to form CoBrA, a name which was made by Dotremont, formed by the first letters of their hometowns: Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. The members opposed aesthetics in painting and bourgeois art in general.
Constant had already outlined their ideas in his manifesto in Reflex magazine. This manifesto contains another of his famous quotes: "A painting is not a structure of colours and lines, but an animal, a night, a cry, a man, or all of these together".
Constant was productive during the CoBrA period. White Bird (1948), Ladder (1949) and Scorched Earth I (1951) are some of his noted works from this period. At this time CoBrA published bulletin additional artists from several different disciplines joined their ranks. In 1948 Constant, together with poet Gerrit Kouwenaar, published a poetry album Goede Morgen Haan. Additionally there were two large CoBrA exhibitions, one in Amsterdam in 1949 and one in Liège in 1951.
The director of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (Municipal Museum of Amsterdam), Willem Sandberg, was very supportive of young artists and fully supported the CoBrA group by giving them seven large rooms to exhibit their work in. Most of the CoBrA works had been fairly small due to their lack of money and so Sandberg gave the artists an advance to create some larger works in the week before the exhibition. Constant, Corneille, Appel and Eugène Brands created several large pieces of art that have become iconic for the movement. The architect Aldo van Eyck was commissioned to shape the exhibition. The works of art as well as the way they were presented give rise to harsh critique from press and public. A critic from Het Vrije Volk wrote: "Geklad, geklets en geklodder in het Stedelijk Museum" ("Smirch, twaddle and mess in the Municipal Museum"). The CoBrA artists were considered scribblers and con artists.
In the Liège exhibition in 1951, even larger than the Stedelijk exhibition, the CoBrA group dissolved itself and with its tenth edition bulletin publication. As Christian Dotremont, the international secretary, stated in Museum News in 1962 the group would rather "mourir en beauté" (die in beauty) than become a regular artist interest group.
After CoBrA Constant's work became more abstract. Back in Amsterdam in the summer of 1952 he developed an interest in spatial architecture and three-dimensional works. With Aldo van Eyck, whom he met during his CoBrA time, he created a space for the exhibition 'Man and House' at the Urban Museum Amsterdam from 1952-1953. In 1954 he worked on a project with Gerrit Rietveld. Together they created a model house for the de Bijenkorf chain of department stores.