February 18, 1929. Born in New York City: Walter Carl Glück. Son of Andrew Ferdinand Glück (1891-1974) and Mary Eliopoulos (1895-1965). His father came from Hamburg to the United States in 1914 and was naturalized in 1922. His mother was Greek and had fled with her family from Smirna to the United States in 1922, being naturalized only in 1936. Walter was much influenced by his mother’s large, close-knit family with many Greek traditions; the word KALA, for example, (Greek for something like “it is all right”) appears frequently in Viktor’s work.

Walter went to several schools in New York City. He had difficulty accepting authority and often suffered from not being accepted by his peer group. Being a strongly inner directed personality, he developed – already as a child – his own individualistic behaviour. Walter was offered a place in a school for specially gifted children, but his parents declined the offer as it would entail the upheaval of the whole family. Instead, Walter finished high school in New York. He then had various jobs, such as in a liquor shop and in an ice cream factory. He also worked as a fire watcher in California and, for several reasons, as a lifeguard (he had been a champion swimmer already at high school). Walter also travelled widely in the United States and visited Europe in 1951, where he met his father’s family. Walter was a child of the city,
sharing a room with his sister in a little apartment until he went to university in 1954.

Moved to Florida, to study at the College of Journalism and Communication of the University of Florida in Gainesville. After university, Walter – or Karl, as he preferred to call himself – began years of travelling. He intended to be a freelance journalist and photographer.

After a bicycle trip to Mexico and Peru he returned to New Orleans where he obtained seaman’s papers and sailed on a freight ship to Europe. Upon his return he bicycled on to Mexico and Peru. Karl extended his travels to the Far East, where he was sent (in 1959) by the United States government to work for the CARE organisation, to distribute milk powder in Korea. Early in 1960 he was fired (for playing with water pistols in working time, as he used to recount). He left for Japan, where he lived for six months, and again took up photography.

By the end of 1960 he went back to the United States for a short period in January 1961, then left for Europe. In France be bought a small Renault Estafette truck and this became his mobile home. Thus he lived for several months in Paris – curiously enough without any interest in art. He never went, for instance, to the Louvre (because, as he put it later, he couldn’t find the entrance).

Karl travelled to France, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, England, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and the Soviet Union. He was, as he later described it, “magnificently tossing around” – and at the same time looking for a raison d’être and for a place to settle down. In Germany, near Hamburg, where part of his father’s family still lived, he once again tried to make a living as a photographer.

In the Autumn of 1961 he came for a longer period to Amsterdam, where he obtained his first staying permit in December.

Actually, he continued photography for a while and did some travelling, until 1963 when president Kennedy was assassinated. This event changed Karl’s life. Karl felt that this was a turning point in his life and after having painted for some months his “belief changed into knowing”, as he said.

He had found the way to express himself and in April 1964 he decided to be a painter and a writer and to call himself Victor IV (soon Viktor IV). “It all began in 1964” he used to say.

He bought a ship, in 1964, an old freighter, installed a studio in it and called it Kamakura Buddha. He kept for some years, though, the little apartment on Keizersgracht where he had lived until then.

Viktor started to paint on driftwood, old hatches (“luikens”, as he called them) and other pieces of driftwood which he collected in the Amsterdam Harbour. He named his paintings Ikons. There is no religious connotation in his use of this Greek work. Viktor’s Ikons are images of everyday events, comments of life, with humorous touches and twists, playful and serious at the same time. Instead of the divine scenes and figures of the religious icons “the subject matter of Viktor 4’s (…) ikons is always sun and earth and the rich paperthin layer of human life in between”. Thus he formulated it himself, once, in the beginning. “Enough serious and a lot of laughter” he said later. The hatches were dried and superficially cleaned. But the tar and the oil in the wood affected the paint Viktor used. White became sometimes yellowish and the colours tended to look old on the worn down pieces of wood. The use of red lead (“menie”) and tar paint  made the paintings an organic part of the surroundings, a natural product of life on board a ship in the Amstel river. Viktor worked profusely, with inexhaustible energy, often on many Ikons at the same time. He said that he felt “like a tiger on an elephant”.

Nothing could stop him. Wanting to share his enthusiasm, as usual, with others he tried to exhibit his work in the arcade under the Rijksmuseum, where it was removed by the police. The first time Viktor showed his work in a gallery was in December 1964, in a group shop “Foreign painters in the Netherlands”, at the Bols Taverne, Amsterdam, followed by a personal exhibition at Gallery 20D, also in Amsterdam, in October- November ’65. He came into contact with Sandberg, who was director of the Stedelijk Museum until 1963.

Viktor frequently visited the Stedelijk Museum. There he disconvered the etchings of Anton Heyboer that would influence his own work profoundly. He was also deeply impressed by Heyboer’s personality and no doubt Anton’s way of living was an inspiration too. Although their relationship was often strained, Viktor’s respect for Anton was total and lasted all through his life. But the two men were very different. In comparison – and contrast – to Heyboer Viktor was extrovert, always wanting to share with other people, to communicate, to play. He was, as he used to say “the big YES”.

In a letter of December 4, 1964, Viktor wrote:

“(...) I listened to hundreds of hours of the wonder and beauty of Mozart, total. He has given me so much. And now I find I have something to give, literally, to the world. It is there, it pours out, it will not stop. And I don’t want it to stop. Do you know Mozart died at the age of 35? That is the age I begin. I feel a clock in my back. That is why I work four times faster than other men. It is a frenzy, an ecstasy.”

In the spring of 1965 Viktor published a 32 page brochure, called “Viktor 4, catalogue one. “4” paintings”. On page nr. 2 he wrote: “This first catalogue is dedicated to Henry David Thoreau who somehow brought me to Amsterdam. The rest of the trip I will make on my own.”

The message of truth, simplicity and independence of Thoreau’s “Walden” had deeply touched Viktor in his youth. Thoreau’s ideas found a natural resonance in Viktor’s character, and Amsterdam provided the circumstances to make some of the dreams of his youth come true. With the brochure in his hands Viktor went to New York and visited a number of galleries. As a result he had an exhibition at the Lefebre Gallery, from January 4 to January 19, 1966. A small catalogue was published by the gallery, for which Sandberg wrotean introduction.

The success of the exhibition allowed Viktor to purchase another, bigger ship, a beautiful old “tjalk”, called “Berendina Fennegina” which he renamed Henry David Thoreau – only to give it back its original name a few years later, as Viktor felt his life had become to complicated to live on a ship named after Thoreau…

A big source of inspiration for Viktor were young and pretty girls. Many stayed with him for a while and many have been more or less close to Viktor. There is one, however, who deserves to be remembered: Ans Ijpelaar (1943-1987) who shared his life in the mid-sixties. Their relationship was intense but didn’t last. The separation was very painful.

In 1967 Viktor’s mother died in New York. Viktor went to her funeral but returned to Amsterdam almost immediately: He didn’t want to be in New York anymore. But his relation with his father was such that he wanted him to come to Amsterdam after his mother’s death and live with him. He even bought a ship for his father to live on, an old “klipper”, which he baptized “The Angel of the Amstel”. His father came but didn’t stay for long. Still it was important for both that they had tried.

Viktor didn’t travel much in his Amsterdam years, but turbulent 1968 was an exception. He drove to France, to Spain, to Italy, Switzerland, Germany and up to Denmark to visit an aunt who lived in Copenhagen. There he met Stuart Owen Fox, an American who had fled the United States (and the Vietnam war). With him he visited the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek and its curator Flemming Johansen. He also met Flemming’s wife Elisabeth. An intense correspondence developed in the following year. Eventually Elisabeth came to Amsterdam to become Ina and stay with Viktor for the rest of his life. Ina and Viktor often went back to Danmark.

Friendship with Flemming Johansen had remained and in 1982 Viktor’s Ikons were shown at the Glyptotek. In the late sixties the production of Ikons slowed down. Viktor was looking for a new way to express himself and found it in work on paper. He started what he called “Logbook pages”. The use of ink, watercolour, collage and typed text allowed him to use more of his writing and to work more spontaneously than was possible with painting. The Logbooks were the second big wave in Viktor’s work. A rapidly growing number of pages emerged. With his usual enthusiasm, he aimed at putting together 44 books, gathering the loose pages under short, keyword-like titles.

Over the years Viktor made thousands of pages, working on many books at the same time. Few books he considered actually finished, most were left with an open end. Also the loose pages in every book had no particular order except chronology.

The sheets were a never ending record of everyday’s thoughts and reactions to daily events. All pages bear stamps indicating the exact date and marking in big numerals the number of the month since Viktor’s birth as an artist (which he considered to be April 4th, 1964). He started the Logbook pages in the spring of 1969 although he did collages and other works on paper the year before. However, the first big numerals only appear uninterrupted from June 1969 although he did collages and other works on paper the year before. However, the first big numerals only appear uninterrupted from June 1969 on, i.e. the sixty-fourth month of the artist Viktor IV. Of some pages Viktor made copies on a simple stencil machine, to sell or to give away, as he wanted to keep the originals together. In 1970 and 1972 Gallery K 276 in Amsterdam (Keizersgracht 276) exhibited Ikons and a large number of Logbook pages.

In 1972 a new activity was initiated by Viktor and Ina, which they soon called “The Second Quality Construction Company”. Beginning small, it soon grew to wild proportions. Strange constructions, rafts with masts, sheds, primitive cabins and waving flags, an enormous threedimensional collage of found materials, held together by nylon stockings and men’s ties, thousands of knots, and showing letters, numbers and signs all over, with texts like “Unneccessary” or “Who needs the Pacific Ocean”. Many of the materials Viktor used were leftovers from the famous nearby Waterlopplein flea market, where he went every day at closing time. He loved to save thrown away things and give them a new life in his own world. Also the garbage containers were an inexhaustible source of material. He thought they were goldmines and felt (and acted) as he was robbing the bank.

In 1974 Viktor’s work was included in an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, called “Hed 2 gebruik” (“The 2nd use”), held on the occasion of the publications of the so-called “Drukkersweekblad”, December 1974.

Viktor’s bizarre raft construction was baptized “Radio Baskerville”. It radiated fun and enthusiasm and became a kind of theatre where Viktor enjoyed himself immensely. It soon attracted so much attention from the passing tourist boats that it became hard to live with. “It is all our own fault”, Viktor said. When the harbour authorities kindly requested a limitation of the ever growing rafts and other constructions he understood and even moved everything for a while (in 1975) to a remote place, behind the Zoo. Viktor’s relation to the harbour officials was always based on a certain mutual understanding, tolerance and amusement.

In this period of raft building (which certainly was not completely stopped by the harbour regulations) Viktor changed his name, as he had done before where starting something new. He now called himself Jack Sun, inspired by his favourite fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk) which had to do with courage and trust that whatever you do in good faith will be rewarded.

In the summer of 1976 Jack Sun left for Denmark on his motorized carrier-tricycle named “Vladimir Nabokov”. He had been invited by the Louisiana Museum in Humlebaek to participate in the exhibition “Alternativ Arkitektur” which was to be held the following year. On the small lake beside the museum Viktor and Ina constructed Raft #XI, a frail construction that could be moved up and down the lake like a ferry boat.

The Printroom of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, organised an exhibition of Logbook pages from April 1 to May 15, 1977, under the title of “Who needs the pacific Ocean, Viktor IV and the Second Quality Construction Company”. Besides the Logbook pages there was a slide programme on show, which gave a picture of life and work on board the ship. It was accompanied by one of Viktor’s favourite pieces of music: Fauré’s Requiem.

The building of rafts did not diminish in the course of the seventies. Only now they grew broadwise rather than upwards. One of the new constructions that appeared was a small square cabin, built by Ina on a separate raft, and called “Branch Office”. The grass, the flowers and shrubs on the rafts, combined with a continually changing menagerie of cats, doves, chickens, rabbits, ducks, geese and sometimes even swans, gave the impression of an idyllic floating garden where one could imagine oneself far away from civilization, at two steps distance from the Blauwbrug, in the heart of Amsterdam. As Ina wrot in a letter: “Yes, there was a kingdom here – although all castles do not look like Versailles. This one is built of soft driftwood, straw, the smell of tar, white doves, purring cats and old flags, paintbrushes and colour pencils. The healthy sound of hammer and saw, a typewriter and an old sewing machine. Quiet doings and a note of Schubert. Hot soup and toasted bread. The burning fire and an emotional warmth. A constant good humour and a gratitude to Amsterdam.”

Around 1975 a sign appeared on the ship, saying “Bulgarian Women’s Club” (formerly the “Brooklyn Women’s Club”). This was the prelude to a new passion of Viktor’s. He imagined that his family – and also some of his friends, if that took his fancy – originated from a remote area in Eastern Europe. Maps and encyclopaedias were consulted and the New York son of immigrants conjured up a past, which made his straight descend from the old Bulgarians clear as sunlight. From that moment on Viktor called himself Bulgar Finn and most people have known him under that name of Bulgar from that moment on until his death.

The Bulgarian past went with a fascination with runes, the nordic alphabet, which he used to paint countless panels and boards in clear colours with simple words, such as TAK, BREAD, YES, EVERYTHING, THE EGG. In the same way he also made measuring sticks and pieces of wood with cheerfully coloured arrows. It was as he said “a second wave of painting”. He also made what he called “runic telegrams”: short messages, such as: UNFORTUNATELY I AM STILL SMOKING. Bulgar made less Ikons, and also the number of Logbook pages decreased.

Around 1978 Viktor/Bulgar became enthusiastically involved with clocks. He thought that it was time to end the age-old way in which we indicate and read the time from our clocks and watches. It started with the face of a clock in a bar, from which he had removed the 6 and regularly divided the other numbers, so that at first sight everything seemed normal. But visitors of the café who had a few drinks after work became strangely confused when it came to establishing the time to go home. Viktor called his new activity Bulgar Time. The next step was to design (in 1980) a clock where the hands turned in the opposite direction. Clockfaces emerged in rapid succession, the 6 reappeared, but the clockface was, for example, turned 180 degrees, so that the 6 appeared at the top and the 12 at the bottom. In September 1981, after many trips to Switzerland, together with Ina in his old black deaux chevaux (called “TRUCK ENOUGH”), at last, the first prototype of the first Bulgar Time Swiss Quartz wristwatch was manufactured. A long series of different models, including watches running at double or triple speed even, was to appear over the years. First they were sold by Viktor himself, but finally (in 1986, shortly before his death), the four models he considered as definite were put on the market by Art Expo, Odense, Denmark, in a limited edition, in a black box with accompanying book.

In 1982 August Louisson-Barrier made a 53 minute documentary film on Viktor’s work. Called “Who needs the Pacific Ocean”. It was produced by Sigma Films. The film was shown on Dutch and Danish TV.

As mentioned before, the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen showed the Ikons in 1982 (May 27-August 29).

In December 1982 there was a small exhibition of watches in the Stedelijk Museum, followed in 1983 by a larger exhibition of Ikons, pages, watches and runes in Odense, and a presentation of the watches an related drawings at the Louisiana Museum in Humlebaek.

Viktor took a trip to New York in 1983, for the first time in sixteen years, because the OK Harris Gallery issued a watch of his. On the clockface it said OK NOW, otherwise the design was not unlike the Bulgar Time #6.

In the course of a few years Viktor’s clocks and watches were exhibited in various places, often in the framework of an exhibiton on the theme of time. Bulgar Time clocks can be found in all kinds of public places, even the Amsterdam, City Hall. The Cultural Centre “de Krabbedans” in Eindhoven exhibited the watches and other work from 7-29 September 1985 in a group show. At the same time Viktor’s “TRUCK ENOUGH” was installed at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, on blocks of wood in a dark gallery with the headlights on, illuminating the two prototypes of his latest double speed watches. This exhibition was the last one during Viktor’s life.

At the end of June 1986 Viktor drowned whilst strengthening, under water, the base of a huge raft that was to be his new studio for painting. His funeral, by boat, on the sunny third of July, attracted thousands of sympathizers both on the river banks and bridges and on dozens of boats. Viktorøs friend Robert Jasper Grootveld was responsible for this moving event. The Mayor and Aldermen of Amsterdam stated in a letter of condolence to Ina:

“The accident that happened to him is also a blow for Amsterdam. Our city is proud ot carry the image of a free society, offering space to new impulses, new ideas. In Amsterdam “it” happens: The playful, the surprising. Walter Glück was pre-eminently the man to colour this in his own, special way. The heart of Amsterdam goes on beating. Walter Glück’s death does leave a scar”.

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