Herman Brood
1946–2001 · Dutch Pop Art painter, also a musician
Hermanus "Herman" Brood (Zwolle, 1946 – Amsterdam, 2001) was a Dutch painter who became widely known as a rock musician, but who, later in life, built a recognisable body of work within Amsterdam's art circles. His painting matters because it shows how an artist shaped by the music scene of the 1970s and 1980s carried his visual energy into paint and screen prints.
After a music career that included his own group, Herman Brood & His Wild Romance, and the album Shpritsz (1978), Brood turned to painting. His work is best described as pop art: highly colourful compositions, often inspired by graffiti, and made as screen prints. He also painted murals in public spaces in and around Amsterdam, which brought him notoriety and some commercial success.
Brood was also a media figure, and his turbulent lifestyle and outspoken remarks about drugs gave him a controversial image. He appeared in biographical films, such as Rock'n Roll Junkie (1994). In 2001 he took his own life by jumping from the roof of a hotel in Amsterdam, shortly after his drug rehabilitation programme had failed.
His death raised the market value of his work, although his paintings, which had often been vandalised during his lifetime, were stolen for their monetary worth. In 2006 the Groninger Museum devoted an exhibition to his life and studio, and in 2007 the film Wild Romance about his life premiered. Black Francis dedicated the album Bluefinger (2007) to his life, and it later inspired a rock opera.