(b Amsterdam, 5 Sept 1885; d Amsterdam, 12 Jan 1956). Dutch sculptor, painter and draughtsman. The son of a decorative sculptor, he was trained in the same field, but decided at the age of 21 to enrol at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam to take lessons in drawing. At first his main interest was in painting and during the 1910s he spent some brief periods in Paris, where he met other Dutch artists such as Jacob Bendien and Kees van Dongen. Like them, he was influenced by French modernism. His earliest sculptural works were small pieces in wood and bronze, still reminiscent of his early decorative training. Raedecker established his reputation as a sculptor in the 1920s, supported by the influential art critic H. P. Bremmer. After another stay in Paris (1929–31), he settled permanently in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam and Groet, where he quickly became established as the leading Dutch sculptor of his generation with important commissions such as the Toorop Monument (Zorgvliet, The Hague) and the Scherjon Monument (Wassenaar Cemetery). His reputation was confirmed by the commission for the sculptures (1947–56) on the National Monument on the Dam in Amsterdam, a war memorial designed in collaboration with the architect J. J. P. Oud. A more successful example of his work is the life-size bronze figure of a falling man (1947–9) for the War Memorial in Moonenlaan Park, Waalwijk. The main themes of Raedecker’s sculptures recurred throughout his career: along with portraits, there are female nudes and disembodied, androgynous masks with strong symbolist overtones. The same subjects appear in his drawings, which were greatly prized by contemporary critics. Raedecker’s art can be characterized by a languid and introverted sensuousness and by technical virtuosity in a variety of media.

• Raedecker, John (Anton)
  • Bendien, Jacob
  • Netherlands, the, §IV, 4: Sculpture, after 1900