The call came as a surprise. And yes, he had to think about it. It is not every day that artist Thomas Langeveld (39) from Haarlem is asked to paint a famous Dutchman on TV. So he took up the challenge. Tonight his artwork by former football player Arjen Robben can be seen in the TV program Sterren op het Doek.
Thomas is actually not allowed to say anything about it. In any case, he is not allowed to tell which painting the footballer took home. In the program, three artists create a portrait of a well-known personality. They have to make the difficult choice to take one of the three works of art home. The other two will be auctioned for charity: the Youth Sports and Culture Fund.
Fc Groningen
His face is a closed book and does not reveal anything about the final outcome. That really has to wait until tonight. He does provide a glimpse of the mystery by telling us about the location where he first met the footballer. “We are not told in advance who the person is. I immediately thought of a football player because we had to come to the FC Groningen stadium.”
“I saved my money and went to Australia for a year when I was 17. There I sold portraits”
In his art school Dara, which stands for Dutch Atelier of Realist Art, Thomas talks about the challenge of capturing the mobile Robben in a portrait. “He sat still for fifteen minutes. Then he was talking ‘full motion’ with Özkan Akyol, the presenter.”
It also started to rain for a while in the stadium, but he still saw that first moment as a preliminary study. “I had decided to do a preliminary study in charcoal. And of course I took pictures.” Once home he decided to make something bigger in oil paint.
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In the studio, which with its plants and cozy seating areas looks more like an attractive living room than a drawing school, he worked carefully. He painted in the raised corner, where there are all kinds of portrait sketches of students and – not unimportant – a curtain that can hide the space from view. As soon as classes started, he pulled the curtain closed. Because secrecy surrounding the portrait was and still is required.
Self-taught
Thomas founded a drawing and painting school with his girlfriend in 2018. Pretty special. He was self-taught for a large part of his life. As a child he liked to draw, but his high school years were somewhat turbulent: “I changed schools a few times.” That’s why he decided to work full-time at the age of 16. “I saved my money and went to Australia for a year when I was 17. There I sold portraits, painted murals in a hotel and that’s how I earned my money.”
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After a year, Langeveld returned to his old boss in the Netherlands to save for his next trip: to Asia. “It was actually a kind of business trip from which I got a lot of inspiration. I still do now.” With his painting and drawing materials under his arm, he sat in cafes where he worked on his portraits, landscapes and still lifes.
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Back in Haarlem he started making portraits of pop stars. Those were very popular. At an exhibition in Antwerp he met a wealthy Scot. “That man was very taken with the portraits of the Rolling Stones. He asked me to come to his villa in Tuscany.” He then stayed in Italy for two years and attended classical art training in Florence in 2012.
“Quite difficult to suddenly have to accept something from someone else when you have already figured out how to do it yourself for so long. But I was able to put that aside. It was a very good basis for my further work.”
Work that has now also been noticed by television makers. And although Thomas had to think about the call for a while, the painter is happy that he participated. “It was another wonderful experience. And Robben has a striking head. I immediately knew it had to be a large canvas.” And the artist really doesn’t reveal anything more about the program.
Painter Thomas Langeveld can be seen on Saturday evening, November 11 at 8:40 PM in the television program Sterren op het Doek on Omroep Max. In it he and two other artists portray former professional footballer Arjen Robben. Thomas grew up in Haarlem, recently lived in Zandvoort and is co-founder of the Dara art school on Pascalstraat in Haarlem.