Brick relief (Baksteenreliëf De Bam)

About this artwork.

In its free play with shapes and colors, the monumental brick relief of 7 by 18 meters on the west façade of De Bam sports hall matches the function and name of the building: Bam is the name in Drenthe for a place where you are free in a game.
Van der Zee made a design drawing of the abstract brick relief for the masons. In this he indicated the color, shape, direction and the brickwork bond; the joints were given the color of the stone. The stones are red, black and purple in color and vary in type of material, structure and thickness. The coarse, slightly shiny black bricks are the thickest and protrude above the red ones, which in turn are slightly thicker than the purple smooth bricks.
 
The brick relief is one of the many monumental commissions that Jan van der Zee carried out during his lifetime. In 1950 he received his first commission for monumental work: a mural in the staircase of the Theo Thijsssenschool. Once his name was established in this area, Van der Zee received a lot of assignments from the government under the percentage schemes. This regulation prescribes that one or one and a half percent of the entire construction sum of government buildings must be used to embellish the buildings. The stream of monumental commissions the artist received was also due to the fact that he had taught future architects and construction engineers for a number of years after the war. Van der Zee's vision of the integration of visual art in architecture was widely appreciated and when visual art commissions were available, his former pupils did not seem to have forgotten him.

Jan van der Zee was a versatile artist. In addition to paintings, watercolors, lithographs, drawings, wood and linocuts, he made sculpture and was involved in all kinds of applied art. He developed his preference for abstraction at an early stage, with style artist Bart van der Leck, whom he met during his service in 1917, playing a key role.
In the heyday of the De Ploeg artists' circle, Jan van der Zee was the artist who worked most abstractly within this company.
In 1965 Jan van der Zee was awarded the Cultural Prize of Groningen.

Facts & Figures.

• Design
  Jan van der Zee

• District
  Haren en omgeving

• Year of creation
  1968

• Art type
  Relief, Art in / on a building

• Material
  Brick

• Dimensions
  h 7,00 x b 18,00 m