Kid Oliveira (Boxer)

This is an original artwork, please don’t touch.

Next to this artwork, you can find a tactile relief on the wall. You can touch this relief in order to experience the artwork in a different way.

Information on the artwork

This portrait of the boxer Kid Oliveira won Wim van de Plas the second prize in the 1939 exhibition North Brabant Painting and Sculpture at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. The museum immediately purchased the painting. Van de Plas was a celebrated portraitist. His sitters included Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and Pope Pius XII.

The boxer is depicted in an 'active pose': his body is turning and he supports his weight on his left hand. His light blue shirt and green tie contrast subtly with the brown-ochre tints of his skin, which stand out somewhat from the dark suit. The background is applied in a casual wash of colour, but the portrait itself is painted in assiduous detail.