J.M. Capricorne: Kleurrijk Koninkrijk.
On December 15, 2022, at Paleis Kneuterdijk in The Hague, the exhibition:
COLORFUL KINGDOM – Paintings and objects by José Maria Capricorne,
opened on the occasion of the celebration of Kingdom Day 2022.
This exhibition was organized partly at the request of the Vice President of the Council of State, Mr. Thom de Graaf.
Mrs. Lusette Verboom-Fairbairn, owner of Gallery Alma Blou in Curaçao, put it together in close consultation with José Maria Capricorne (b. 1932) and his daughter Nilka.
On December 25, Capricorne will celebrate his 90th birthday. Born in Curaçao, he grew up in the working-class neighborhood of Otrobanda, where his father had a carpentry business. His mother’s family came from the plantation Waterloo, near Suffisant.
Capricorne’s pictorial idiom begins when he works as a decorative painter at the Eerste Curaçaose Aardewerkfabriek -First Curaçao Pottery Factory (1951-1953). Lack of work forced him to emigrate to Brazil in 1954. After this, he moved to the Netherlands, where he completed his studies at the Amsterdam Graphic School in 1958 and started working as an advertising designer and painter.
When Capricorne returned to Curaçao in 1968, he felt the social tensions that prevailed at that time. Several of his works also date from that period. He became involved in establishing the Curaçao Academy of Visual Arts (Akademia di Arte), of which he was director, from 1970 to 1988. In 1993, the family relocated to the Netherlands due to their young son, who died shortly after that. Capricorne continued to engage in his passion for drawing and painting. His art still revolves around Curacao.
In 1985 Capricorne was awarded the Premio Cola Debrot, the cultural award of the then Netherlands Antilles, for his efforts in art education. In 1988, he received the Lustrum Prize of the Curaçaosch Museum for his entire body of work as a visual artist. Several monographs about the artist have been published.
It is the magical realism that makes Capricorne’s work so special. He creates a unique dream world in which people transition into fantasy figures, nature and history. His exhibitions are numerous, both inside and outside the Netherlands, including in Curaçao. This exhibition at the Council of State in The Hague is a crowning achievement offering spectators a tour through more than 60 years of artistry by this extraordinary yu di tera.
The exhibition, held at the Council of State, entrance Kneuterdijk 22, The Hague, will remain until January 2023.
To view J.M. Capricorne’s profile page, please click this link.
Please credit the source Curaçao Art®️ www.curacao-art.com when reproducing the text above. The artist retains all image rights of their artworks.