Provenance: Galerie d'Eendt NV. Provenance: Marlborough, London. Provenance: Private collection, The Netherlands.

Lucebert – a pseudonym for Lubertus Jacobus Swaanswijk – was one of the foremost proponents of the experimental movement in the post-war Netherlands. He contributed to the first CoBrA exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1949, and he was basically the group's poet; a kind of master of ceremonies who gave poetic performances. Here he claimed that the experimentalists were the first literary “nudists”, probably as a revolutionary expression that the world was now – after the war – ready for a new beginning. Both as a painter and a poet, Lucebert was an artistic rebel who sought to redefine and overthrow the prevailing social norms. At the same time, he was a man of faith who relied on religion and his own personal spirituality. His figures often have a demonic, caricatured feel to them, like the red-eyed and toothy creature in the painting here.

I reel off a small revolution I reel off a small lovely revolution I am no longer of land I am water again I carry foaming crests on my head I carry shooting shadows in my head on my back rests a mermaid on my back rests the wind the wind and the mermaid sing the foaming crests murmur the shooting shadows fall

I reel off a small lovely rustling revolution and I fall and I murmur and I sing From: de getekende naam (‘the branded name’) 1952