Fondation Constant

Revisiting a 1952 Gem

In 1952, Constant Nieuwenhuys and poet Jan G. Elburg created the portfolio Het Uitzicht van de Duif: one cover and nine colour woodcuts by Constant with poems by Elburg, published in a small edition of 125 copies plus four artist’s copies.

Made in the first years after Cobra, these prints show Constant moving towards a more abstract visual language, where colour and spatial composition become central. This 1950s experimentation with space and colour was later examined in the exhibition Constant. Ruimte + Kleur / Space + Colour at the Cobra Museum (2016), which traced his development from Cobra towards New Babylon and included large-scale constructions realised with, among others, Aldo van Eyck.

On 10 December 2025, Veilinggebouw De Zwaan in Amsterdam presents The Aldo & Hannie van Eyck Art Collection, a unique ensemble in which modern art is shown alongside a long-built collection of non-Western and so-called “tribal” art.

Placing Het Uitzicht van de Duif next to the Van Eyck collection highlights a shared focus on space, structure and the human imagination: Constant in print and colour, Van Eyck in architecture and the way he lived with art in his home.

📍 Uitzicht van de Duif, 1952, numbered ‘31’, signed by artists and author— from the Van Eyck Collection, 10-11 December 2025, Veilinggebouw De Zwaan, Amsterdam
[link in bio 🔗]
Viewing Days: 4-7 December 2025

📷 Jan Elburg and Constant, Het Uitzicht van de Duif, 1952, 34,4 x 27,2 cm, Portfolio with 9 woodcuts, no’s 1-4 | photos: Tom Haartsen

Also in the collection of:
Dordrechtsmuseum
Fondation Constant
Kunstmuseum Den Haag
Museum Cobra
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
Stedelijk Museum
Van Abbe Museum

RuimteEnKleur SpaceAndColour CobraMuseum ModernArt Printmaking ArtistBook Amsterdam VeilinggebouwDeZwaan

Processing the war through line and stone

In 1951, Constant confronted the dark psychological aftershocks of the Second World War.
Where his late-1940s drawings still revelled in playful, childlike fantasy, the early 1950s mark a decisive shift: violence, fear, and human vulnerability enter the work with new urgency.

The portfolio 8× la guerre is one of Constant’s clearest responses to this turning point.
Eight lithographs — raw, urgent, and stripped to essentials — explore the fractured state of postwar humanity. Bodies and weapons dissolve into trembling marks; the war is present not as narrative, but as trauma etched into the nervous surface of the stone.

Aldo van Eyck understood this transformation instantly.
As the architect who welcomed Constant, Appel, and Corneille into his Amsterdam home, Aldo was more than a supporter — he was their intellectual sparring partner. The COBRA artists found in him a mind that shared their belief in creativity, intuition, and the rebuilding of culture after devastation. It is no coincidence that Constant dedicated one of the earliest copies of this portfolio specifically to Aldo and Hannie.

Here, art and architecture meet on common ground: the search for renewal after destruction.

📍 8× la guerre, 1951, numbered ‘1’ and dedicated “exemplaire pour Aldo et Hanny Constant” on a label inside the portfolio— from the Van Eyck Collection, 10-11 December 2025, Veilinggebouw De Zwaan, Amsterdam [link in bio 🔗]
Viewing Days: 4-7 December 2025

📷 Constant, 8× la guerre, 1951, portfolio with eight lithographs, each signed ‘Constant’ verso, number 27, sheet 40 × 28 cm, published by the artist, Amsterdam, edition of 50, Collection Fondation Constant | photo: Tom Haartsen

Also in the collection:
Aldo and Hannie van Eyck
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, USA
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, NL
Kunstmuseum Den Haag, NL