Bram (Abraham Gerardus) van Velde was a Dutch painter known for an intensely colored and geometric semi-representational painting style related to Tachisme*, and Lyrical Abstraction*. He is often seen as member of the School of Paris* but his work resides somewhere between expressionism* and surrealism*, and evolved in the 1960s into an expressive abstract art. His paintings from the 1950s are similar to the contemporary work of Matisse, Picasso and the abstract expressionist Adolph Gottlieb. He was championed by a number of French-speaking writers, including Samuel Beckett and the poet André du Bouchet.

Bram van Velde was born into an intensely poor family, and this would mark him profoundly for life. His mother, Catharina von der V...