De Ploeg by the Sea; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague

Jan Wiegers

Artist’s movement De Ploeg (‘The Plough’) was founded in 1918 by amongst others the painters Jan Wiegers (1893-1959), Johan Dijkstra (1896-1978) and Jan Jordens (1883-1962) in the Northern city of Groningen.

Jan Wiegers

Jan Wiegers

De Ploeg tried to plough the field of the arts after the First World War.

Jan Wiegers

Johan Dijkstra

Its centenary is especially celebrated in Groningen this year, but the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague has presently made a very fine selection of its collection of graphic works by De Ploeg’s founding and pre-War members.

Jan Wiegers

Jan Wiegers

From 1921 onwards De Ploeg was heavily influenced by German Expressionism, especially by Kirchner’s works.

Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman

Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman

Although some members, notably the great printmaker H. N. Werkman (1882-1945), had good international contacts, De Ploeg never became an internationally renowned movement , like De Stijl, probably also because it had no clear manifesto or influential periodical.

Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman

Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman

Apart from people like Werkman the movement became more conservative toward the Second World War.

Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman

Jan Wiegers

Today De Ploeg in name still exists, but its members, though fine professionals, with their moderately modernist style are a far cry indeed from the movement’s revolutionary roots.

Jan Jordens

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2018

Content of all photographs courtesy to the Gemeentemusem, Den Haag

Bertus Pieters

Jean Brusselmans; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague

Jean Brusselmans (1883-1953) is undeservedly not a household name.

This is probably because he was outstripped by colleagues of his generation as Brusselmans’s personal style took quite a long time to evolve.

The present exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum shows works from the 1930s and 1940s, his most prolific and characteristic period.

Although his experiments and endeavours weren’t always successful, as the exhibition shows, they also brought him to making some nearly immaculate masterpieces.

In every new painting he tries to find a balance in form, colour and mass in his subjects, resulting in his best works in a fine lyricism or a distinguished monumentality.

Whether his subjects are joyful or sorrowful, Brusselmans always avoids sentimentality and overt expressiveness.

Pain, love and joy to him were clearly never a narrative but sentiments that should be worn with human dignity, without decorum but with style, not something to move the viewer to tears but to let him/her discover the glance of them.

For any lover of painting there are a lot of wonderful and fascinating works on show.

Works where you can see Brusselmans trying how to decide about colours and shapes,  sometimes painting over original details but then  making them visible again.

You see him deciding to leave certain parts sketchy or just open, next to fully painted parts. Details become decorations and decorations become expression.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2018

Content of all pictures courtesy to all owners and Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag

Bertus Pieters

Raquel Maulwurf, The Carbon War Room; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague

I visited the Gemeentemuseum to write a review about The Carbon War Room by Raquel Maulwurf for Villa La Repubblica. Click here to read the review (in Dutch).

As i have written quite extensively about the show on VLR, i leave you here with some details of her works, which, of course, should be seen in real.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2017

Content of all pictures courtesy to Raquel Maulwurf, Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag and the owners of the works.

 

Bertus Pieters

Bart van der Leck (Piet Mondrian and Bart van der Leck); Gemeentemuseum, The Hague

I visited the Gemeentemuseum to write a review about Piet Mondrian and Bart van der Leck for Villa La Repubblica. Click here to read the review (in Dutch).

I focused on Bart van der Leck (1876 – 1958) as he is the least known – especially internationally –  of the two. Hence all pictures here are of works by Van der Leck and ordered more or less chronologically.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

© Villa Next Door 2017

Content of all pictures courtesy to Gemeente Museum, Den Haag, Museum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo and several private collectors.

 

Bertus Pieters

Alice Neel, Gemeentemuseum, The Hague

1926

To write a review for Villa La Repubblica i visited the Alice Neil show at the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague. Click here to read the review (in Dutch).

1930

Neel has been more or less a painter’s painter for quite some time, but with this exhibition it is hoped this will change for the better.

1935

As i wrote quite extensively about the show for VLR i leave you here with some pictures and details.

1935

I arranged them chronologically so as to have some idea of the development in Neel’s painting.

1936

1936

1940

1943

1948

1958

1958

1959

1960

1961

1967

1967

1968

1969

1970

1971

1971

1972

1972

1973

1973

1976

1976

1978

1980

1984

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

(Content of all pictures courtesy to the Alice Neel Estate and Gemeentemuseum The Hague)

Bertus Pieters

Tomas Rajlich, Structures in Paint, 1966-1976, Gemeentemuseum The Hague

I went to the Gemeentemuseum to write a review about its present show of Tomas Rajlich’s early works for Villa La Repubblica. Click here to read the review (in Dutch).

More recent works were on show at Ramakers gallery in October. Click here for some pictures of that show.

The Gemeentemuseum exhibits works from the decade around 1970. In 1969 Rajlich (1940) came to Germany and then to the Netherlands from his native Czechoslovakia and he lived for some forty years in The Hague before returning to the Czech Republic.

As i’ve written extensively on Villa La Repubblica about Rajlich i would  merely suggest you visit the show.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

Content of all pictures courtesy to Tomas Rajlich and Gemeentemuseum The Hague

Bertus Pieters

Judith and Edith; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague

The Gemeentemuseum shows Gustav Klimt’s Judith I from the Belvedere Museum in Vienna and is quite proud of it.

A loan like that is so special that the museum has chosen for a very special presentation in combination with its own Edith by Egon Schiele, another top work from the period.

Each portrait represents a very different type of woman

– somewhere in between Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan and Was will das Weib? –

in an age when women were regarded by men as a kind of different species or, at best, as spirits that stirred in male sexual problems.

To stress their differences they are shown in different rooms.

Apart from that some delicate works on paper by Schiele,

Klimt and

Kokoschka, mostly from the Gemeentemuseum’s own collection are on show, completed with

some jewelry and furniture from the period, as well as

a sculpture by George Minne.

The presentation is designed by Maison the Faux, more or less based on Vienna Secession design. To an extent it works.

Edith in a room with curtains works very well and

the presentation of the drawings in black and white decorated rooms is nice, although the jewelry and furniture are not resistant to the decorations and look haphazard.

The decoration of Judith’s room however, with perfume bottles with motives from the paintings, made me feel I had missed something (and I think I still do). What I didn’t miss was the horrible smell of visitor’s perfumes.

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

Contents of all pictures courtesy Gemeentemuseum Den Haag

 

Bertus Pieters

The Pride of Poland, Wojciech Weiss, retrospective; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague

Old man, circa 1896

Self-Portrait with an Apple, 1897

Springtime Landscape in Plaszów, 1897

True, Wojciech Weiss (1875-1950) was a good and talented painter. But there have been and are many good and talented painters in this world.

Student, 1897

Saddened, 1898

The Gemeentemuseum grants us, the Dutch, even the non-Polish, a chance to enjoy a retrospective of Weiss, who is iconic in East European art history, according to the Gemeentemuseum.

Melancholic – Requiem, 1898

Chopin, 1899

He is compared to Mondrian and Kandinsky. Well, as such the exhibition is quite a disappointment.

Chopin, 1899

Obsession, 1899-1900

The accent is particularly on his early works from 1897 to 1905. Only few paintings of a later date are on show and they are technically good but not really interesting in substance without more context.

The Painter’s Parents, 1900

Self-Portrait, circa 1900

The comparison with Mondrian and Kandinsky is not substantiated at all. The present show leaves you with the idea of a painter who was good and promising as a youngster, but who apparently didn’t leave many footsteps that stick to the mind later on.

Boy among Poppies, circa 1901, reproduction from the original glass plate negative

Study for Poppies, 1901

As a biographic exhibition it doesn’t seem to be very complete. As an art historical exhibition it should have shown more works of East European contemporaries to give some idea of his alleged iconic status.

Kiss amid Poppies, 1901

Poppies, 1902

Having said that, his early works are quite good and enjoyable and maybe you find them a good relief from Toorop’s ecstasies, which are also presently on show in the museum.

Poppies, 1902

Renia Reading in Kalwaria, 1908

Crisis, 1934

Also, the Dutch Polish community might be well served with this exhibition.

Farewell to the Academy, 1949

[Click on the pictures to enlarge]

Content of the pictures courtesy the Gemeentemuseum The Hague

 

Bertus Pieters