Contact gallery for price		Stephen Robert Koekkoek British, 1887-1934 Light in the Valley and Moonlit Landscape Oil on panel 5  x 7  inches (11 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches framed) Signed Stephen Robert Koekkoek was born in London on 15 October 1887. Born to a family of notable Dutch painters, Koekkoek spent his childhood in England and Holland, the home of his paternal grandfathers. His father was the well known Hermanus Koekkoek Jr. (1836-1909), who had immigrated to England in 1869. In 1910 the family moved to Lima, Peru, the start of an often restless life for Stephen, one that would take him throughout South America.  With an emphasis on forceful painterly brushstrokes, his work can be characterized as Dutch Post- Impressionism. For several years Koekkoek lived and worked in Mendoza, Argentina, where he married and had a son. In 1916 Koekkoek visited Chile, and a dealer there, Carlos Orero, organized an exhibit of Koekkoek’s paintings in Bay Blanca Oroero. Many of the works sold. Orero arranged another exhibit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, one that gained favorable notice by critics and was successful in terms of sales. Successive exhibits in Montevideo and Lima secured Koekkoek’s reputation. In 1923 he moved to Buenos Aires. There his works were exhibited at the Municipal Bank of the City of Buenos Aires. In 1925 Argentina’s future president, Juan Peron, then a captain in the army, bought one of Koekkoek’s paintings. In 1926 Koekoek began to suffer from serious mental illnesses. That year the police committed him to a hospital, but he was allowed to continue painting.  Several doctors bought his work. After his release, he was penniless and used furniture and doors for his painting surfaces. In the next years his friends organized exhibitions for him, and one of his landlords accepted paintings in lieu of rent. He died on December 20, 1934. A 2004 exhibition at Town Hall in Cordoba, Argentina featured forty-seven paintings by Koekkoek on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the artist’s death. The Koek-Koek Foundation of Art and Culture was established in his name in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The pair of small oil paintings Light in the Valley and Moonlit Landscape highlight Koekkoek’s interest in post-impressionism. Both landscapes demonstrate the artists’ skill in capturing light and mood. Light in the Valley appears to be a study of a mountain valley with a foreground of flowers, perhaps poppies. In the middle distance the viewer sees horizontal strokes of white paint, suggestive of a small village or a body of water. The background appears to be a darkened mountainous region backlit by an orange and yellow sunset. Moonlight Landscape, a dramatic nightscape, illustrates the reflection of the moon, just suggested at the top of the painting, on the water below. Though living in South America, Koekkoek was surely creating the work as a memory piece of the Dutch world of his artistic ancestors. On the left the viewer sees a shoreline dotted with windmills. A couple of confidant wide strokes of red paint on the left foreground serve to balance the composition, one that seems to pay homage to a long rich tradition of Dutch painting.