Cornelius van Velsen; carrying on pile driving

Summer 1956: amongst possibly twenty other posters – which were certainly not bad – my eye was attracted like a magnet to the intriguing, magically-realistic picture of a pile driver. In my imagination, I stood fascinated for hours looking at the asymmetrical composition to which the slanting supports definitely added an extra dimension. I was just 10 years old and was gradually, more or less through play, becoming aware of posters. Not a single billboard escaped my attention!
In addition to Mettes which was seen everywhere, there was another signature: a certain C. van Velsen which you didn’t only see in the street or on a platform but also in the shop window of the record shops.

It soon became clear that Cor van Velsen, a record cover designer within the Netherlands and further afield, stood high above the rest. And from my point of view with his Philips covers, rightly so seen as an equal to the American Grand Master Alex Steinweiss (Columbia Records etc). What is remarkable is that both of them, due to their wide musical interests, could be equally deployed for classical music as for jazz.

However, it was a different story when it came to posters. Here Cor moved among many eminent colleagues, an ideal climate which was also appealing to collectors. Since his first direct hit ‘See Holland’ (the clog and tulip field), which also attracted international attention, the crescendo increased and Cor has actually never been without work.
Furthermore, his ‘local printer’ was the legendary lithography company De Jong & Co. from Hilversum that was situated practically on the corner of his studio. From here, an optimal cooperation existed with the master-lithographer J.B. Sleeper who was associated with this company.

Accordingly, Sleeper put Philips for Jazz, the Joy orange peel and the KAB pile driver, among others, on the record. That is to say: he translated the original gouache into the required number of off-set plates and subsequent colour separations. Everything was done by hand and with feeling and was a job which – depending on the subject – could take two weeks or more!

A top selection of these magnificent pieces, in both the artistic and technical sense, will come under the hammer during this auction.

© Gielijn Escher, 2009