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.