Richard Bouwman

Richard Bouwman was born in Rotterdam on August 10, 1947. From 1967 till 1973 he studied at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. He lives and works in Rotterdam.

In 1973, 1974 and 1976 he participated in exhibitions at the Lijnbaancentrum in Rotterdam organized by the Rotterdam Art Foundation. In 1975, his work was displayed in Brussels during the Biennale Art in Europe. In 1980, he showed in Rotterdam the installation Le coup de foudre at Gallery Black Cat and in 1986 the installation The Sulphur Stairs at the city’s library as a part of the manifestion Perfo 4D. He took part in five exhibitions organized by the Netherlands Office for Fine Arts, amongst others the exhibition Hommage, which was on view at the Museum of Modern Art in Arnhem in 1987. In 1990, he exposed his work in the Gallery Nave Diez in Valencia, in 1993 in Amsterdam at Gallery Maria Chailloux, in 1994 in Rotterdam during the Art Fair Gallery 1994 at the Kunsthal and also that year at the Poetry International Festival. In 1995, he showed Délires/Delirium at the Multiple Gallery of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MuHKA) in Antwerp. In 1996, he participated in the exhibition Succubus at Gallery Cokkie Snoei and Rotterdam On line at the Center for the Arts, both in Rotterdam.
A selection of the exhibition La chasse spirituelle was shown in 1997 at the Institut Néerlandais in Paris. In 1999, La chasse spirituelle was further shown at the Institut Français des Pays-Bas, Maison Descartes in Amsterdam and at the Musée Arthur Rimbaud in Charleville-Mézières in France. In 2001, La chasse spirituelle was shown at the Alliance Française Rotterdam and during the Poetry International Festival 2001. Also that year, he took part in the Grosse Kunstausstellung NRW in Düsseldorf. In 2002/2003, he exhibited his work at Gallery 2000/Planetari and at the Central Exhibition Hall of the Union of Artists, both in St. Petersburg. In 2003 he showed The Garden of Hypnos in the municipal Museum of Maassluis and a selection of the works of this series in the Center for the Arts Rotterdam.
In 2004 he participated in the exhibition Arthur Rimbaud et les livres d’artistes, with Jim Dine, Fernand Léger, Joan Miró, Ernest Pignon Ernest, Germaine Richier, Zao Wou Ki and Robert Mapple-thorpe, at the Musée de l’Ardenne in Charleville-Mézières. Also that year he participated in the exhibition Hypegallery at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. In 2005 he showed his work in the exhibition Arthur Rimbaud at the University of Antwerp. In 2006 he also showed at Antwerp The Garden of Hypnos and Abundance in Het Elzenveld and he took part that same year in the exhibition Timelines, the way of the expression, with a.o. Jörg Immendorf, Gunther Förg and James Brown at Livingstone gallery in The Hague. Also in 2006 het took part in the exhibition Order and Chaos, held at the Artstore Kunstambassade Rotterdam. In the years from 2003 till 2011 he participated in the Grosse Kunstausstellung NRW, which was yearly held at the Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf.
In 2007 he is showing Abundance, paintings and works on paper, at Livingstone gallery in
The Hague, together with works by James Brown.
In the same year his exhibition The Sacred Vineyards was held at the Museum of Nature in Rotterdam.
In 2008 he showed Paintings and Works on Paper at Livingstone gallery and in 2010 the series Imago Magica, also at the same gallery.
In 2011, he participated in the exhibition 20 years of Livingstone gallery and in 2012, also at Livingstone gallery, he took part in the exhibition On the Road Again.
From 2011 till 2015 he showed his work at the yearly held Salon at Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam.
In 2013 he took part in the exhibition Face the Face at Livingstone gallery in The Hague.
In 2014 he showed his work at the Grosse Kunstausstellung NRW, which was held at the Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf and he participated in the exhibition Angels & Demons at Livingstone gallery, which gallery also showed his work at Art The Hague and in 2015 at Rotterdam Contemporary Art Fair. The same year he participated in the exhibition Boomers Art at WTC Art Gallery in Rotterdam and at the occasion that seven works on paper and the edition/portfolio Délires/Delirium, all from his series La chasse spirituelle, were acquired for the collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, the exhibition La chasse spirituelle was held at Livingstone gallery.
In 2016 the groupexhibitions De Salon at Arti et Amictiae and How Heavy is Time at Livingstone gallery followed. In 2017 he participated in Up Memory Lane II, 30 Years of Ram gallery at Ram gallery in Rotterdam, the yearly Salon at Arti et Amicitiae and he took part in the Grosse Kunstausstellung NRW, held at Museum Kunst Palast in Düsseldorf. Also that year he showed his work in the exhibition Family Ties at the Foundation of Visual Arts in Amsterdam. In 2018 he participated in The End of War, 100 Years after WWI, at Livingstone gallery in The Hague and in 2019 in the exhibition Work from the Collection Jeanne and Arnoud Braat during Art on Paper at Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam. In 2020 he showed work at The Salon at Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam. In 2021 he participates in Solo met Gasten at Stichting Kunstwerkt in Schiedam and in the Grosse Kunstausstellung NRW Düsseldorf 20/2021 at the Museum Kunst Palast Düsseldorf. Also he exhibits at Livingstone gallery in The Hague at the occasion of thirty years of Livingstone gallery. In 2022 he shows In the Light of Dionysos and Eros & Psyche at Walgenbach Art & Books Rotterdam and he participated in the exhibition Summer of Love at Livingstone gallery,
in the exhibition 'Big', at the Foundation of Visual Art in Amsterdam and in the Salon 2022 and 2023 in Amsterdam.


Works by him are published in catalogues of the Netherlands Office for Fine Arts in 1973, 1982 and 1984; in catalogues of the Center for the Arts Rotterdam in 1982 and 1989; in 1986 in the catalogue of Perfo 4D; in 1990 in the catalogue of Gallery Nave Diez in Valencia; in 1994 in the catalogue Black Cat (1978-1984); in 1999 in the catalogue La chasse spirituelle, in 2001 in the catalogues of the Grosse Kunstausstellung NRW Düsseldorf and Rotterdam 2001/St.Petersburg 2003, in 2003 in the catalogue The Garden of Hypnos , from 2003 up to 2011 in the catalogues of the yearly held Grosse Kustausstellung NRW in Düsseldorf, in 2008 in the catalogue Abundance and in 2011, 2014, 2017 and 2021 in the catalogues of the Grosse Kunstausstellung NRW Düsseldorf. Also in 2017 his work was featured in the catalogue Up Memory Lane, 30 Years of Ram gallery.

Articles about him and his work appeared in the Spanish newspaper Hoya de Lunes from Valencia of 30.7.1990 (Fernando Arias: Abstracción, ritmo y mitología) and in the Dutch newspapers: Het Vrije
Volk (Joost van de Hooff) in 1987 and 1989, Het Parool of 26.5.1994 (Jan Bart Klaster), De Volkskrant of 2.10.1997, NRC Handelsblad of 3.3.1999 (Margot Dijkgraaf, The World of Poet Arthur Rimbaud as a Source of Inspiration), Rotterdams Dagblad of 31.8.1999 (Dolf Welling, Desperate Text was an Impulse for Impressing Lithographs) and De Volkskrant of 14.10.1999. The article Sur les traces de Rimbaud appeared on 27.10.1999 in the French newspaper L’Union-L’Ardennais. In 2001 two articles about him appeared in the Dutch newspapers Het Financieele Dagblad of 26.5.2001 (Peter Kattenberg, Inspired by Rimbaud) and Trouw of 26.6.2001 (Cees Straus, Shivering Imbues Poetry Bouwman). In 2003 an article appeared in the Dutch newspaper Rotterdams Dagblad of 29.8.2003 (Peter Ouwerkerk, Plants and Gardens that will stupefy you).In 2007 Cees Straus wrote an article about his work in the Dutch newspaper Trouw of 2.4.2007 (As Beauty in Abundance has to look like).
In May 2010 an article about him appeared in the Dutch magazine Elegance and in 2012 in the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant of 4.1.2012.

Works of Richard Bouwman are in the collections of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, The Netherlands National Department for Cultural Heritage, Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, NL, Het Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, Center for the Arts Rotterdam, the Royal Library, The Hague, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MuHKA), Antwerp, the Royal Library Albert I, Brussels, the Fundación Barceló, Palma de Mallorca, the Musée Arthur Rimbaud, Charleville-Mézières, FR, the Centre Georges Pompidou/ Bibliothèque Kandinsky, Paris and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris