Truus (Geertruida) Braster
(Nijmegen 22-06-1921 – 07-05-2018 Grou)
Selftaught hand weaver.
(please send any biographic and/or genealogic specifics)
"Landschap 1992" "Kalkar 1991"
This posting started yesterday with the discovery of 5 "items of interest" at a befriended local used-goods and vintage & industrial design furniture dealer who occasionally does house clearings. It happened to be 5 pieces of “tweed” carefully matted, all with titles and dated in handwriting on the back around 1991.
"Summer 1991" "Winter 1991"
After completing my “rounds” on the bike, and doing my research the "items" turned out to be hand woven “landscape art” by one T. Braster. It was not difficult finding the link between my recent acquisitions and the artist who had lived not far away from where we live, for the last 50 years and had passed away to meet her maker exactly (to the day !) one year ago.
"Oranjewoud 1990"
Besides her obituary (she died last year, reaching the aged of 97 in the nearby village of Grou) there’s a local newspaper interview dated several years back in which she explains what her art was about. As a self taught hand weaver she had held a fascination and had become inspired by the geometry in the landscapes she saw, translating the patterns and lines into the fabric created in her loom. Created by an 80 year old: they must be the result of a lifetime of loving observation and skill this posting is also kind of a tribute.
We both like them very much, so after clearing a perfect spot on a wall they will continue to be cared for and treasured.
She had been married to Jaap (Jacob) van der Meij (Amsterdam 1923–1999 Spain), sculptor, painter and monumental artist who is buried in Hollum -Ameland. He'd studied at the academy in Amsterdam under Heinrich Campendonk (1889-1957), once a member of “der Blaue Reiter” and friends with Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc he'd fled the Nazi regime and taught monumental art in Amsterdam since 1935.
Campendonck had also been the teacher of Max Reneman(1923-1978), a painter and sculptor but also a dentist who died in a plain crash near Sicily in 1978. 1878 was the year I graduated as a young dentist and started my professional career on the island of Ameland. Reneman was, when he died tragically young one of the international icons of prosthodontics, the practise, study and theory of dynamics in full dentures in Amsterdam. Along his professional line of research also worked his colleague and close friend prof. Guus Flögel( b. 1925) who happened to be my prosthodontics professor in Utrecht. They revolutionized the world of prosthodontics getting much attention (and probably funds for much needed research) combining research and practise with humour and art.
In their wake followed prof. Warner Kalk( b. 1945) becoming one of the worlds most influential, leading and awarded prosthodontists. He acted as the head of the Dentistry department and professor of Oral Function in Groningen University when I came to work for and with in 2001, training students and also involved in prosthodontics.
For Frisians, van der Meij’s most capturing work is probably the monumental (really huge) concrete statue of 3 impressive "giants" near the city of Dokkum. On a clear day they could easily view their makers ancestral island of Ameland on the horizon. Jaap van der Meij’s roots lay on the island of Ameland. His ancestors have lived and loved for generations on the island: sea captains, fishermen, wheelmakers and peasants. He was laid to rest among his ancestors.
The obituary of Truus Braster mentions very few people. Becoming so old and having no children (I think, although Jacobs grave monument may suggest otherwise) most people met in their lifetime will have “gone before”. But her friend Jentsje Popma(b. Zwolle 1921 and also nearing 100) a contemporary Frisian painter born in the same year as Truus Braster, was.
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| Two examples of Popma's paintings: the dikes guarding Friesland and its islands against the North-sea |
Popma had studied in the Academies of Rotterdam and Amsterdam earning the Cohen Gosschalk price in 1946 as (most) promising student, and then studied painting at Groningen Academie Minerva. He followed a career as glazer en sculptor before he took up a career in painting in the late 1980’s (after the age of retirement: artists never retire) becoming probably Friesland’s most celebrated contemporary landscape painter.
All roads leading to ..........
all pictures embiggen by mouse-click
all pictures embiggen by mouse-click
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All pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only.
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