Compositie

Hand-signed with ballpoint. Title: Collage with 3 sides in silver foil Technique: Ballpoint pen and collage in silver foil Completely framed. Sijbren Ridsert (Siep) van den Berg (Tirns, January 14, 1913 - Amsterdam, October 27, 1998) was a Dutch painter and sculptor. As the son of a blacksmith, Van den Berg attended the trade school. He became a house painter, but also made paintings.[1] In 1930 he visited the Frisian painter Jacob Ydema to talk about his ambitions; on that occasion Ydema made a number of sketches of him. From 1930 to 1933 he attended the evening course in drawing and painting at Minerva Academy in the city of Groningen. He was taught there by Jan Altink, among others. At the same time he got to know the Frisian painter Gerrit Benner. After this training he set up an advertising agency with Oscar Gubitz. In 1937 Hendrik Werkman discovered his painting and encouraged him to continue. From 1939 Van den Berg rented the teahouse in the Sterrebos in Groningen as his studio and devoted himself completely to being an artist. In 1943 he married Fie, the daughter of Hendrik Werkman,[2] and visited Paris several times after World War II, taking classes at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Van den Berg divorced his wife and moved to Amsterdam in 1954, where he had a studio on the Brouwersgracht. He kept the tearoom in Groningen. Initially Van den Berg made free paintings, but his style developed from naturalism through impressionism and cubism to constructivism. Van den Berg suffered from Guillain-Barré syndrome, which kept him out of action for about ten years from 1966. Later he resumed his work, which was even more abstract than before. In addition to paintings, Van den Berg also made several sculptures; as a sculptor he was self-taught. In 1983 he donated the sculpture Libbensline (Life Line), which was unveiled on 13 October of that year by Queen's Commissioner Hans Wiegel, to his hometown of Tirns. In 1986 the Humanistische Omroep made a documentary in which Van den Berg talked about his life and work.