Siebe Johannes TEN CATE 1858+1908

Biography

Siebe Ten Cate is a Dutch painter born in 1858 and died in Paris in 1908. This artist, who made several study trips to Europe, the United States and Egypt, painted landscapes and city views whose motifs are most often taken from the surroundings of Dordrecht and Paris (View of Paris under the snow, 1904, Geneva, Petit Palais). He is a researcher who notes his impressions with scrupulous fidelity and who happily surrounds reality, bringing out the significant aspects of large centers in the bustle of crowds or the solitude of abandoned corners. He excels at rendering the local sensation and the changing tones depending on the time of day or night, both in his city views and in his landscapes and seascapes.

At the age of 22, Ten Cate moved to Paris where he met Van Gogh in the 1880s, with whom he became friends. He will also share a workshop in Montmartre with Van Dongen.

He regularly exhibits at the Salon d'Automne: his work, openly attached to the impressionist movement, is strongly imbued with a feeling of melancholy.

His landscapes, at night, rainy and predominantly gray are sometimes lit by violent touches of light which can recall the art of a Whistler.

He exhibited several times in Munich, in Paris with French Artists, at the National and at the Universal Exhibition of 1900, in Venice and Vienna. Unjustly forgotten for a time, it has fortunately regained the favor of amateurs, who, today, place it in its true place. His paintings are kept in Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum), in Paris (Carnavalet museum), in Geneva (Petit Palais).