Wall mounted 3d polychrome sculptures made from found wood.
Pontiac Bonneville 1963 [2001]
Bas-relief in salvaged wood, 185 x 95 x 16cm
(collection of Taco Verplanke, Barendrecht, Netherlands)
Photo: Bob Goedewaagen
The first series of twelve bas reliefs were all cars:
Wall mounted 3d polychrome sculptures made from found wood.
Chevrolet Impala 1959 [2001]
Bas-relief in salvaged wood, 175 x 92 x 16cm
(Collection Artotheek Oost, Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Photo: Bob Goedewaagen
The first series of twelve bas reliefs were all cars:
Wall mounted 3d polychrome sculptures made from found wood.
Chevrolet Caprice 1967 [2001]
Bas-relief in salvaged wood, 235 x 92 x 16cm
(collection Marc Overman, Rotterdam, Netherlands)
Photo: Bob Goedewaagen
The first series of twelve bas reliefs were all cars:
Wall mounted 3d polychrome sculptures made from found wood.
Crashed Toyota [2001]
Bas-relief in salvaged wood, 305 x 92 x 16cm
(private collection, Rotterdam, Netherlands)
Photo: Bob Goedewaagen
The first series of twelve bas reliefs were all cars:
Wall mounted 3d polychrome sculptures made from found wood.
Bas-relief in salvaged wood, 305 x 92 x 16cm
(private collection, Rotterdam, Netherlands)
Photo: Bob Goedewaagen
The first series of twelve bas reliefs were all cars:
Wall mounted 3d polychrome sculptures made from found wood.
Ferrari 500TRC 1957 [2000]
Bas-relief in salvaged wood, 246 x 115 x 16cm
(private collection, The Hague, NL)
Photo: Bob Goedewaagen
The first series of twelve bas reliefs were all cars:
Wall mounted 3d polychrome sculptures made from found wood.
Chrysler Town & Country 1973 [2000]
Bas-relief in salvaged wood, 204 x 82 x 16cm
(collection Dirk Berghout, Dordrecht, Netherlands)
Photo: Bob Goedewaagen
The first series of twelve bas reliefs were all cars:
Wall mounted 3d polychrome sculptures made from found wood.
G.A.Z.21 Volga 1962 [2000]
Bas-relief in salvaged wood, 190 x 110 x 16cm
(Alexander Ramselaar Collection, Rotterdam, Netherlands)
Photo: Bob Goedewaagen
The first series of twelve bas reliefs were all cars:
Wall mounted 3d polychrome sculptures made from found wood.
Pontiac Police 1975 [2000]
Bas-relief in salvaged wood 245 x 105 x 16cm
(Bouwfonds collection, Hoevelaken, Netherlands)
Photo: Bob Goedewaagen
The first series of twelve bas reliefs were all cars:
Wall mounted 3d polychrome sculptures made from found wood.
Plymouth Custom Suburban 1969 [2000]
Bas-relief in salvaged wood, 205 x 95 x 16cm
(collection of Van der Ende Steel Protection Innovators, Barendrecht, Netherlands)
Photo: Bob Goedewaagen
The first series of twelve bas reliefs were all cars:
Wall mounted 3d polychrome sculptures made from found wood.
Chevrolet Chevelle 1965 [2000]
Bas-relief in salvaged wood, 245 x 75 x 16cm
(collection Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, Netherlands)
Photo: Bob Goedewaagen
The first series of twelve bas reliefs were all cars:
Wall mounted 3d polychrome sculptures made from found wood.
Chevrolet Chevelle 1965 was the first bas relief. With it Van der Ende introduced a whole new take on the existing bas-relief format. This invention did not come out of nowhere.
How the first bas-reliefs came about
After a period of building boat models from salvaged wood it proved hard to expand into new territory:
“The Kadett and Globe sculptures were my final attempts to make the full 3d modelling technique work for a wider range of subjects and on a more monumental scale. Although successful in themselves, the sculptures did not seem to point a way forward. The Doelen project had left me with a taste for innovation and for working on a larger scale, and the smaller models now felt too limited.”: “… I needed an approach for my bread-and-butter artwork that would offer prospects for further artistic development and would at the same time be suitable for commissioned projects.
Then one day the solution arose: the bas-relief! In retrospect I wonder why it took me so long to arrive at it. It is really only a small step from a ship half-hull model to a bas-relief. Some people even confuse the two.”
Image: A computer sketch to assess colour application for the Chevelle bas-relief. Note the schematic approach at this stage. Although the next reliefs revealed the possibilities of incorporated shadows and reflections the ‘flat’ approach returns in the Ferrari 500TRC and later works.
Images: Studio view Lekhaven.
Image top: A selection of tiny jpeg’s from the Gillys Car Wreckers website collected in 2000. Gillys.com was one of the many excellent image sources in the early days of the internet. Most disappeared quite quickly, a victim of their own success. Bandwidth was expensive back then.
More photo’s and sketches from this period:
The first series of twelve bas reliefs were all cars:
