Bram Bogart ranks amongst the principal artists of the 'Informel', the large post-war movement, which abandoned geometric abstraction in favour of a more intuitive form of expression, similar to action painting, but often a lot more textural. Bram Bogart worked at the heart of the movement, which included artists such as Alberto Burri in Italy, and Antonio Tàpies in Spain. In 1946 Bogart settled in Paris for a decade, a difficult time during which his work received negative press in his homeland. Typical reactions to his work at the time amounted to what a Dutch critic phrased as 'a form of rock and roll with paint in its most stupid manifestation'. However, after his move to Belgium in 1959, Bogart's work became widely recognized. From the early 1960s onwards he developed his unmistakable original canvases, characterised by a new technique radiant with colour, light and optimism. Although Bogart has used the same technique since the early 1960s, he has always been able to renew his painting and is considered one of the most important post-war 'materie' painters. Following Bogart's passing away in January 2012, The Cobra Museum, Amsterdam paid a long-awaited tribute to the 'Master of Materie', with a large retrospective show.