Remembering Henri van Bentum (1929-2022) Message from the international Circumnavigators Club

 

"Henri van Bentum, artist, was truly a man of the world.

He was a long-time member of the historic Circumnavigators Club, a nonprofit organization founded in 1902 for people who sailed around the globe (*), and who believed in making the world a better place through friendship and understanding. 

Henri was an esteemed member of the Circumnavigators. 

We will miss him. “Luck to you”, Henri!"

David A. Mink, President

(*) The Circumnavigators Club is the only organization devoted to bringing together those men and women who have circumnavigated the globe by any means, crossing every meridian longitude in one direction. The Club's purpose is to encourage global fellowship and understanding. It strives to inspire people to see and absorb as much as they can about the world in which we live. Motto:  Through friendship, to leave this world a little better than we found it.  https://circumnavigators.org/

Certificate of membership for Henri van Bentum, Circumnavigators Club, 1975

You are invited to visit  "Remembering Henri van Bentum", a new landing page

featuring several existing, and legacy projects. 

More from the August 13, 2022 Memorial Gathering for Henri van Bentum: offering by Dr. Seonaigh MacPherson

 

Henri van Bentum in Petra, Jordan

Henri van Bentum: A Life of Amplitude - by Seonaigh MacPherson

"I have been invited to say a few words about Henri as a friend and collector of his art. Yet, my first contact was with Henri as a teacher, so I would like to start there.

Teacher

Our first contact was in a colour workshop Henri offered in Vancouver in 1987. In this workshop, he demonstrated how through three simple primary colours - red, blue, and yellow - the entire universe of colour could be generated.

As evidence, he had us prepare our own colour wheels. This reflected one of the abiding things Henri has shared with me - through instruction or by example - to return to the fundamentals.

It was a kind of simplicity, as he called it, or practicality, that was as apparent in his art as in his cooking, which focused on simple, nutritious ingredients combined to produce taste, health, pleasure, and stimulating conversation in equal measure.

The second thing I learned from Henri was creativity in living, not just in art. He modelled and embodied how, through modest means, it was possible to create a life of amplitude.

This is a rather odd word or phrase that came to me as I contemplated Henri, so I thought to check up the meaning of the term in the Meriam-Webster dictionary.

While commonly known to signify the size of a wavelength in physics, the definitions continued on to describe qualities of character rather than matter. In these cases, amplitude referred to an extent of dignity, excellence, or splendour or, alternatively, the quality or state of being ample as in fullness, abundance.

Henri van Bentum, crew member aboard "Esperanza", sailing from Ibiza to Italy 1961

This encapsulates for me the kind of creativity in living manifested by both Henri and Natasha - the cultivation, through modest means, of a life of dignity, excellence, and splendour that resulted in a sense of a full and abundant life.

The third thing I learned from Henri is one of the qualities ascribed to the motto of the City of Amsterdam's coat of arms described on the program: steadfastness.

In this case, he taught me through example and instruction the meaning of integrity, loyalty, and being there.

Friend

This final quality of being steadfast was something I valued deeply in our friendship as well - a kind of persistence, loyalty, consistency, and presence of duration.

Over the years, Henri and Natasha offered me a kind of refuge as I moved around the country and globe, a touchstone or reference point to return to over the years.

The second quality I valued was the sense of nourishment and enrichment I found over the years in his company. This included delicious meals, as described, which Henri tended to prepare, but extended to the rich colours and textures of his and Natasha's apartment, art, and clothing, collected from around their travels around the globe.

And so too it included enriching conversations and ideas, which were as much a part of the meals and overall experience as the appetizers, wine, main courses, and desserts.

Finally, I valued his quality of caring, a kind and generous capacity to take interest in the lives and well being of others.

As many of us, who knew him well appreciated, Henri could be fierce in defence of integrity and high standards of conduct. This ferocity was a kind of circle of fire that, once penetrated or crossed, welcomed us into his circle of care.

Artist

Why do I collect his art? Because just as he and Natasha gave me refuge in their home and friendship, his art and artistic vision continues to give me refuge every day in my home.

When despondent or deflated through one or another reason, I let my gaze fall on one or another of his canvasses to uplift me.

As others have pointed out, it is their use of light, colour, and perspective that give them this capacity to uplift.

As a sidebar, when I frequented Henri and Natasha's house for dinner while completing my doctoral studies at UBC, Henri like to tease me that I was becoming a Paper-Head Dummy (Ph.D.).

There was something very accurate in all that. I recall a doctoral seminar room in which dozens of chairs were stacked at the back of the room with no pictures on the wall, not even a poster.

It was as if as we reached this apex of education, we were somehow scaffolded out of our senses, as if beauty and awareness no longer mattered, to be replaced by a kind of abstract conceptualism.

In contrast, while Henri is known as an abstract artist, his approach to the abstract is distinctive - perhaps it might be called an abstract ecology.

It is this unique perspective in his art that invites a sense of connection to realities beyond the ordinary appearance of things - both to the cosmos, as has been well represented here, but also to the biological.

As above, so below.

Indeed, it is this biological resonance in his art that has drawn me to collect his work. In his canvasses, I don't merely see artfully placed shapes and colours, but echoes of our biological embeddedness.

Don't get me wrong: He did not paint them to be representational. Rather, they reflect his unique perception and an imagination that springs from nature itself.

In his abstractions, we see the resonance of the microcosm and macrocosm, implicit in the beauty of his forms.

"Coral Dream", acrylic on paper, 1965, Henri van Bentum

As an example, I have brought two of my favourite paintings of his. The first is "Coral Dream", an acrylic on paper, the first painting I bought of his when still a doctoral student. I wanted to invest in this rich life of the senses and feel that it wasn't something I was abandoning in pursuit of that paper-head dummy!

To better share with you my experience of these paintings, I perused the Internet for close up photographs of coral and found this image -- (here Seonaigh holds up a picture) --- that shows how closely his perception paralleled coral in the wild.

"Spatial Rhythms #2", watercolour on paper, 1983, Henri van Bentum

Likewise, the second painting, a watercolour, from his Spatial Rhythms series, always reminded me of chromosomes lining up to form DNA. Sure enough, when I looked for electron microscopic images of chromosomes, I found this picture --- (Seonaigh holds up another photo) --- with such close parallels to the abstract painting.

In this way, I hope you can join me in appreciating Henri's unique approach to abstract art as a way to perceive our interconnection with the microcosm of the Earth just as it echoes, too, the macrocosm.

So, thank you Henri, for having enriched my life and for living a life of amplitude. Thank you to all of you as well for sharing in this appreciation and celebration of his life."

Seonaigh MacPherson with Tashi

---

You are invited to visit  "Remembering Henri van Bentum", a new landing page

featuring several existing, and legacy projects. 

Honouring Henri - by friend Brian W.E. Johnson at Memorial Gathering, August 13th, 2022

Henri van Bentum

1929 - 2022

Friend and fellow Snooker player Brian W.E. Johnson collaborated with Henri on several projects in connection with Henri's opus, "Organiverse", the series of 100 mandalas, and most recently on a narrated video project marrying poems by Rabindranath Tagore, including "Gitanjali" and "Fruit Gathering", with both the original Organiverse series and the Starry Night edition.

On Henri van Bentum, by Brian W.E. Johnson

A narrated version (by Brian) of the following text is now available on YouTube here.

“There has been much said already, with eloquence and clarity, about the breadth and scope of Henri’s interests and activities, and his life’s experience. It is amazing.

I would like to complement some these Macro considerations with some micro mentions. So here are some personal observations and reflections:

Today is Henri’s birthday, and he was born under the Astrology sun sign of “Leo” with a strong Pisces influence. The sign of Leo has “Royal” associations and Henri surely displayed these qualities.

Henri was the main character in this theatre production, and the rest of us are the cast extras, hanging about and tending to his royal Leo highness.

In the real world of the body politic, royal power is borne of the sceptre, representing temporal power in the kingdom. Royalty are feared and respected because of this.

However, in the case of Henri van Bentum, it is not the power of the sceptre and the royal army, but rather, an unusually sensitive and receptive presence that somehow casts a regal-like aura.

Henri lived with enhanced fluid sensitivity, especially to colour, nuances of form, shades and combinations… and, in addition to paying careful attention to detail, Henri embodied an expanded, or perhaps better said, an unblemished sense of wonder.

These combinations and receptive qualities help to explain how and why Henri would often enhance situations and people simply by his presence, and this in turn, would inspire creativity and highlight beauty, in many diverse situations.

Henri and I collaborated on several initiatives, most recently a video project that displays his outstanding Organiverse mandalas in tandem with the poetic verse of “Gitanjali” written by Rabindranath Tagore.

The following is Tagore’s poem #96 in this series:

"WHEN I GO from hence let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable.

I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus that expands on the ocean of light, and thus am I blessed - let this be my parting word.

In this playhouse of infinite forms, I have had my play and here have I caught sight of him that is formless.

My whole body and my limbs have thrilled with his touch who is beyond touch; and if the end comes here, let it come - let this be my parting word."

Rabindranath Tagore, "Gitanjali"

Henri van Bentum, left with Brian W.E. Johnson

August 13, 2010, at Sidney pier

---

You are invited to visit  "Remembering Henri van Bentum", a new landing page

featuring several existing, and legacy projects. 

Henri van Bentum, Artist and Visionary 1929 - 2022

Just launched, here is the link to a new landing page, bringing together in one place several projects by the late Henri van Bentum (1929-2022).

https://vanbentum.wixsite.com/rhvm

In Loving Memory, Henri van Bentum, August 13, 1929 - April 2, 2022

Henri van Bentum, Artist

August 13, 1929 - April 2, 2022

“The brightness that leaps from his canvasses 

is like crystals seen through a microscope.” TIME

Artist and colour master Henri van Bentum, 92, of Victoria, BC, passed away tranquilly in the company of his beloved lifelong partner, Natasha van Bentum, on April 2, 2022.

Henri was born on August 13, 1929 in the Netherlands. The son of diamond-facetter Hendricus Johannes van Bentum and Antonia Alberse, Henri began painting after WWII in a sanatorium during a long bout with tuberculosis. Later the doctors said ‘taking up painting saved his life’.

Cured, he immigrated to Canada in 1957, where two years later in early spring he travelled by train to the Rocky Mountains to paint, a trip sponsored by friend and doctor Wilf S. Goodman.

While painting ‘en plein air’ at Moraine Lake, two faculty members of the Banff School of Fine Arts came upon him unexpectedly. When they saw what was on his easel, Henri was invited to attend the school’s summer session (which he didn’t know existed). Having no money, they waived the usual fees.

Ironically it was in the Rocky Mountains that Henri discovered he was a born abstract painter, and left representational art behind, never turning back. In Toronto he studied with J.W.G. (“Jock”) Macdonald, his respected mentor. Two one-man exhibitions at Roberts Gallery followed.

Henri’s work is represented in over 200 public and private collections. He had solo exhibitions in Paris, New York, Banff, Mexico City, Toronto and Montreal. The Paris exhibition was officially opened by then-Ambassador to France, Jules Léger.

Henri freely shared his love of art, especially colour, with others, teaching classes with new Canadian immigrants and lecturing widely throughout Ontario.

Henri was a pioneer, as well, of the Artists in the Schools program in Ontario.

All this was done despite a facial disfigurement caused by a failed mastoid operation in his boyhood during WWII in the Netherlands, in which he also lost hearing in his right ear.

Soon after arriving in Canada, a plastic surgeon performed a pioneering, 8-hour operation that restored some symmetry to his face, but sadly this was undone when the original (mastoid) condition recurred in the late 1980’s and another operation was required.

But Henri, a born raconteur, was steadfast. He persevered with sharing and giving teachings despite this disability.

In 1972 while living with Natasha in Morocco and on the island of Madeira, Henri created his opus, the “Organiverse Portfolio” – a series of 100 mandalas in pointillism, each 8.5 cm in diameter. Dot by dot, “atom by atom”.

Later, back in the Rocky Mountains 1980-85 where Natasha worked at The Banff Centre, Henri embarked on a new series in watercolour, “Spatial Rhythms” and gave a solo exhibition at the Peter Whyte Gallery.

Meanwhile the ‘Organiverse Portfolio’, took on a life of its own. In 1975 it had been made into a 35mm film and represented Canada at several international film festivals. In 2005 a limited-edition portfolio of the Organiverse was followed in 2007 by a handheld set, with each mandala on an individual card, contained in a box made from recovered west coast wood.

Henri was actively creative until the very end. Recently Organiverse took on yet another form, a digital video production of the 100 mandalas joined with poems by Rabindranath Tagore’s “Gitanjali”, produced and narrated by friend Brian W.E. Johnson.

van Bentum’s work evokes organic processes of the macrocosmic and microcosmic levels, reminding viewers “what lies above, so below”. This led NASA’s public outreach program of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory to launch an online exhibit, “Coloring Space”.

The exhibit juxtaposed images of space with a selection of Henri’s paintings. Friend and astronaut Chris Hadfield called the project “a lovely fusion of science and art”. While Chris was Commander of the International Space Station, he took along a memory stick containing all 100 mandalas.

Henri was a prolific writer and correspondent with friends around the world. Following a diagnosis of bladder cancer in 2015, Henri wrote five children’s stories, all illustrated by Arizona friend P.J. Heyliger.

He was an intrepid world traveller, having been to all seven continents. These travels were undertaken on a shoestring budget. Henri’s mode of travel ranged from foot, bicycle, donkey, camel, jeep, bus, train, freighter and passenger ship to dingy, dug-out canoe, dive boat, sailboat, to Piper Cub and helicopter.

Henri circumnavigated the globe three times in the company of his partner of 51 years, Natasha, and was a proud member of the Circumnavigators Club. He was also a snooker aficionado, a passion he continued to practice into his 90s at the Union Club, with its heritage Billiards Room, winning a trophy six years ago.

Throughout his rich and varied life, Henri continued to share and give widely. He embodied the motto of his hometown Amsterdam: “Valiant, Steadfast, Compassionate” (Heldhaftig, Vastberaden, Barmhartig).

The obituary of Henri van Bentum can be found on the McCall Gardens website, click here.

Written in 1972, reflections by Henri on his "Organiverse" series: background, history, thoughts

Art, Meditation, Ecology 

Atom by Atom - Dot by Dot

Mandala #3 from set of #100, Organiverse

Pointillism, 8.5 cm diameter, by Henri van Bentum

 Art

Created in Morocco and the island of Madeira. My work is in over 225 public and private collections around the world. All 100 mandalas are done in pointillism, dot by dot. The original Organiverse portfolio consists of twenty-five pages, each with four spherical drawings 8.5 cm in diameter.

"The work of Henri van Bentum reminds us of organic processes on the cosmic and microcosmic levels. His work helps me understand the vastness, complexity and beauty of the cosmos. van Bentum's work is executed with a fine sense of colour and other elements. I see his work as a paradigm for enduring works of art in the future." Former Professor Leslie Mezei, Computer Sciences, U of T.

Quote from the former Curator, National Gallery of Canada, Prints and Drawings:

“The technique of the [Organiverse] drawings is comprised of finely-tuned transparent and opaque layers of colour. This play of contrasts gives the work a three-dimensional quality enhanced by a delicate luminosity. The colours are complicated and would require a sensitive use of colour separation. In order to maintain the integrity of the original drawing imagery and effect, the most articulate reproductive methods would have to be utilized.” 

Rosemary L. Tovell, Curator, Canadian Prints and Drawings National Gallery of Canada, 1979

Meditation

Organiverse is a meditational aid or 21st century kasina device. It is used to enhance meditation practice. 

“Organiverse is a glimpse into the multilayered beauty of all that is Life. These mandalas offer an immense opportunity for healing and for a heart-based understanding of who we are physically, emotionally and spiritually. A dance of colour, form and contemplation.”

Dr. Mark Sherman, MDCM, CCFP

  

Ecology

Back in the 1950's I was already looking at environmental issues. I've always advocated ‘Small is Beautiful’ and work on a small scale, using a minimum of resources for maximum results.

Click here for details about the Organiverse rotation handset which comes with a wood container made from recovered wood from Vancouver Island.

 Photo of the Organiverse handheld set

Notes on the original Organiverse Portfolio

This unique series of pointillism mandalas was started in Morocco in 1972.  Natasha and I were living in the former Phoenician fishing village of Essaouira, and afterwards moved to the island of Madeira where the work was completed.

The original Organiverse portfolio consists of twenty-five pages, each with four spherical drawings 8 cm in diameter. The work was made into a 35mm colour and sound short film by filmmaker Julius Kohanyi in 1973. He was commissioned for this project by the Ontario Arts Council. Since that time, the film has represented Canada in major international film festivals around the world.

My motivation in creating Organiverse was to have it reproduced in a limited edition and made available to libraries, art schools, universities and museums. Although pleased with the film’s success, my goal had not been realized. The contemplative nature of the work, with its refined visual sensibility and meditative characters, was lost on the huge 35mm theatre screens.

Over the years, I tried to get the Organiverse Portfolio printed. However an accurate rendering of the colour was impossible owing to the pointillist technique (using traditional printing technology).

However, through a partnership with Hewlett Packard (HP), the portfolio was scanned and reproduced using the latest HP imaging technology, in a limited edition of twenty-five sets.

These scans were further used to create the new Organiverse: Art Meditation Ecology set, featuring each mandala on a separate card.

Creation of the new "Starry Night" edition of ORGANIVERSE

Following a successful experiment with HP, we had a reverse edition of the original Organiverse set created, called “Starry Night”.  I would like to thank Joe Carr, Brian W. Johnson and Garry Sedun for their technical assistance.  Click here to watch videos of both the original, and the Starry Night editions.

Mandala #25 from the set of #100, 

"Starry Night" edition of Organiverse, Henri van Bentum

Statement by the Artist

"While we are occupied with our daily existence, a great mystery takes place: Life, evolving in every form, from micro to the macro cosmos. We on our planet Earth finally begin to realize there may be other life in the Universe.

With this project, we share insights into this enigma called life, embracing art, science and ecology a timeless universalism of growth, evolution or genesis --- we have the microscope and telescope within, and an unknown destiny. This work also embraces the interplay and relationship of Colour. It is further a study in organic development. The invisible is made visible, through dots.

We are biologically no more nor less than dots --- atoms. The planets and even the Sun are only a spot in space, depending from where you look. We have seen, when astronauts go further and further away from Earth, our receding planet then quickly disappears into what one astronaut simply called a dot.

We leave our own world behind, and find a new and alien world, until eventually we leave even that, continuing further to another dot, only to discover that it is again an unknown giant in space.

All life has a beginning, be it the birth of plankton, a whale, lichen, an oak tree, a mouse, and elephant or human being. All comes out of darkness the womb, the cosmic egg. Beyond darkness and ignorance there awaits Light."

Henri van Bentum, written in 1972

Please visit the McCall Gardens' website for Henri's obituary.