Friday 4 April 2014

Bernard Willem Wierink: in Artis ZOO

Bernard Willem (Ben) Wierink
(1856-1939)

Dutch drawer , painter, juwelry and toy designer
bookband designer and books illustrator, printmaker.
and teacher.




Initially Ben Wierink was trained as a teacher, and working with Dutch architect Pierre Cuypers (1827-1921) he assisted in planning the building (1885) of the new Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The recently remodeled, reopened and truly spectacular museum was visited by president Barack Obama last week.




Wierink came along in my recent Jan Uri posting as one of the many artists that worked in Artis Zoo. Earlier I showed Gerrit Dijsselhof (1866-1924), Samuel Jesserun de Mesquitta (1886-1944). The list of fine artist working in Amsterdam Zoo is long: Nicolaas van der Waaij (1875-1936) who painted (and etched) one of the concerts that was given in Artis, obviously influenced by the Germany's greatest impressionist painter Max Liebermann (1847-1935) whom he would will have known: Liebermann visited and painted frequently in the Netherlands and van der Waaij was a professor in the Rijks Akademie for 30 years. 
 Nic. van der Waaij
Max Liebermann

But also Henri Verstijnen (188201940, Maria Kelting (1886-1969), Willem van den Berg (1886-1870) and so many others.  
I love  Wierink’s use of color and his fabulous drawing technique and although I know he created some very fine woodblock prints I've never ever actually saw one. So here’s a good moment to show what I scratched together from the Internet. 


This watercolor, below, was created for the “liber Amoricum for Artis director Dr. Coen Kerbert (1849-1927).  


This is Wierinks woodblock portrait of his friend the painter and etcher Maurits van der Valk (1857-1935) of whom I have a work, this lovely “Friesland”, as it happens, the place where I live. Closing nicely the circle of this posting. 



All pictures are mouse-clickable to embiggen. 

All pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only. 

3 comments:

  1. Hi Gerrie
    I own another Wierink woodcut featuring a pair of lions - he seemed fond of lions.
    I'd be happy to send you an image to add if you like, please remind me where/how to send.
    Regards
    Shaun

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry answering so late Shaun, there was something wrong with settings and my new email adres so I did not see comments coming in. It's fixed now.
      gerbrandcaspers@icloud.com. Please send any pictures.

      Delete
  2. By the way ... Also, I meant to ask - what happened to your very useful catalogue of works for MEPH ?
    It used to be on the site as a tab at the top.
    Shaun

    ReplyDelete