Garnwerd: a small world !

Strolling and scanning a huge carboot in the weekend is always an adventure and a treat and I never mind getting up early, very early. And although the reward this time was pretty slim (keeping money in the kitty for a next visit) I was very content finding this pretty watercolour painting. Here’s the story that followed my research, removing wrinkles and stains and cutting a fresh modern acid free mat.   

Scribbled in pencil on the back: “Kerk te Garnwerd, ter herinnering van  Joh.W.Sterringa 1942”. (The church of Garnwerd, in remembrance from J.W.S).

Johan Willem Sterringa was born in 1920, his brother Herman Evert, who followed in the footsteps of his father, was born two years later. They were the sons of reverend Herman Gerbens Sterringa (1888-1978) and Annigje Jongedijk (they married in 1919, left) who served the community of Garnwerd from 1941-1947. 

The reverend Sterringa had two brothers, Gerhard Antonius, who also was a reverend and an older brother Tjesse, a schoolteacher, poet and Dutch scolar who also had two sons of which Roelof, born in 1909, became a psychiatrist who, what a weird co-incidence, happened to be in the 1960’s our next door neighbor in the city of Amersfoort where we then lived and where I attended High School. A small world !

The picturesque village of Garnwerd, 12 km.NW of Groningen is situated along the tidal Reitdiep, an old and now dead, sea-arm that once connected the mighty city of  Groningen with the North Sea meandering through the wonderful “Hooge Land”. 

Jannes de Vries (1901-1986) Garnwerd

Johan Dijkstra (1896-1978) Garnwerd 

Johan Dijkstra (1896-1978) Garnwerd

The village and the surrounding landscape and it’s famous Hotel Hamming (below) were a great inspiration for the painters of “the Ploeg” (link) a collective of expressionist (mainly) painters established in 1918. The Groningen Museum has their work displayed in a permanent exhibition.

Jan van der Zee (1898-1988) Hotel Hamming in Garnwerd

Sip Hofstede (cont.) Hotel Hamming in Garnwerd

Geurt Busser (1947- ) Garnwerd + het Reitdiep

The rectory, build in 1883, was recently restored and today is in use as a bed and breakfast. The painting, obviously a view from it's garden, probably decorated its walls before, maybe when son Johan Willem left home 1n 1942 ? 

I have no clue what became of J.W. privately or as an artist. The house however would be the perfect place for the painting to return to, so maybe I’ll write to the owners …..or just wait until this posting reaches Garnwerd. It is after all a small world.  

http://www.pastoriegarnwerd.nl/welkom.html

Arie van der Boon: Groningen

Arie van der Boon

1886-1961

Dutch painter, etcher and printmaker.

Against the will of his parents Arie left home and family and his native Zutphen on river IJssel and enlisted in the Academie voor Beeldende Kunst in the Haque in 1903. To leave this institute in 1905 disappointed and taking up private lessons from Louis Willem van Soest (1867-1949) known for his winter landscape paintings and later from landscape painter Derk Wiggers (1866-1933). He was also influenced by Jan Voerman Sr. (1857-1941) the celebrated river IJssel, cattle, landscape and still-life painter (follow the label/tag below) 

Soon after he left for Belgium, wandered around empoverished to finally settle on Wiggers advice in the rural village of Rolde in the beautiful province of Drenthe. Not far from Groningen. There he stayed and worked the rest of life organizing annual exhibition sales of his work: paintings, drawings, etchings and linocut prints.  

Recently I found this charming, gloomy winter etching, with an illegible signature, showing the Driemolendrift and the der AA-Kerk (A-kerk) in my native city of Groningen. My grandparents lived around the corner and my parents started their married life here, right in this ancient street.

The area today is demolished and rebuild but once these characteristic houses with typical front door stairs were part of the medieval city walls and build over the arsenals and powder and ammunition bunkers below. 

Finding the ca. 1900 photograph shows how fine and skilled a draughtsman Arie van der Boon really was. With his contemporary Waalko Dingemans (1873-1925), who was bred and taught in Groningens own Minerva Art Academy they are my two favorite Groningen artists and etchers. More of his Groningen later.    

Curious as always I investigated a bit more resulting in this posting with some  examples of Arie van der Boon's art and this matching wintery Groningen etching of the Walstreet and that other landmark of the North, the Martini tower or "Olle Grize" (the old gray-one). It's on my wish list*. Offers and swapping of prints welcomed, also by Dingemans. 

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

  

Have a glimpse at my new endeavor and project, it's still under construction and progress. There's daily uploading of new works, prints, paintings, etchings etc.. from my collections.  

 Galerie Souris

Floris Arntzenius: jars and flowers

(Pieter Floris Nicolaas Jacobus)

Floris Arntzenius

(Soerabaja 1864 – 1925 the-Hague)

Dutch painter

From before posting, featuring etcher Hendrik Christiaan Spruit and his  linoleum-etchings and ginger jar compositions, to painter Floris Arntzenius I think is an understandable and not to big a leap. Both men were afterall contemporaries, lived and worked in the city of the-Hague and both enjoyed an Indonesian youth and background. I guess they must have known one another. The contrast however between the world of color and black and white couldn't be better illustrated.

At the age of eleven Floris was send to the Netherlands from Java (Netherlands Dutch Indies) to Amsterdam were he was raised by an uncle and aunt. He visited the Royal Arts Academy (RAvBK) in Amsterdam 1883-1888 and later the Royal Arts Academy (KAvSK) in Antwerp

In his Amsterdam class were painter-etcher Willem Witsen (1860-1923) and later famous Dutch (the Amsterdam Impressionist) painters Isaac Israëls (1865-1934), George Breitner (1857-1923) who also did (below left) a ginger jar with anemones as did another class mate painter Floris Verster (1861-1927) famous for his flowers still-lives (below right).

Besides, Breitner and Witsen were among the earliest Dutch city photographers recording the city views and its inhabitants extensively on glass-plate negatives.

Arntzenius, perhaps because of his Indonesian background, moved with his widowed mother to the-Hague in 1892 becoming the 3 impressionist painter of but of the-Hague: the Netherlands capitol. His works are collected in our National Museums and in private collections.

He was one of the most versatile Dutch painters: famous for his watercolours he also was a master in painting rainy day street and city life (of the Haque), Dutch landscapes, Victorian beach life, and in later life grew into a highly regarded and requested portrait painter.

But placed between the text of this posting here are his flower paintings often with iconic and aesthetic ginger jars (and nasturtiums) an almost exclusively Dutch composition and “invention”. As I’ve explained in my earliest Blogging career (follow the tags gingerjar) and throughout.

His wife Alida Margaretha Maria (Lide) Doorman (1872-1954) and his eldest (of 4) daughters Elize Claudine (Lies) (1902-1982) were also able painters and they too embraced flowers and (maybe the family's) ginger jars as their subjects. 

Above: daughter Lies, flowers in pot by her and portrait of her by her father.  

Above: one of the loveliest: by Lide Arntzenius, the painters wife.

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

(Today, there has been an addition to the recent posting on Lina Ammer. For those who might be interested)   

Jos van den Berg, little master

Josua Michiel (Jos) van den Berg

(1905-1978)

Dutch painter and graphic artist

Probably the first work of art I ever bought was this academic drawing by Jos van den Berg in the mid 1970’s when I was a student and stumbled over it in a pawnshop. It has been over our piano ever since and I tease visitors who enjoy the pictures on our walls it was commissioned by my grandfather (who would have loved this story) and the model was my grandmother.

In around 1924 she and my grandfather made a handsome couple, but she surely never posed as model. Born nr. 11 of 12 children she had the courage marrying her love, in 1918, a non catholic. Which was the reason she was excommunicated by all but two of her pious brothers and sisters. She died last of all her family with a distinct view of aversion on religion.

Born a dwarf Josua (Jos) lovingly was called Josje by his colleagues, his size never stood in the way developing a successful career as an artist. Like it did not for that other small but famous artist Henri Toulouse Lautrec (1864-1901).

The nude on the wall, always a nice conversation piece, probably was created when studying in Paris, Rotterdam or The Hague Art Academies he attended in the 1920's and early 1930's.

Occasionally woodcut prints by him turn up locally on the market and his paintings are auctioned regularly. Since I fundamentally refuse paying a fee for pictures that should be free and accessible to one of these commercial art-picture hustling businesses I’m limited showing those who are and without digital polluting watermarks.  

In 1964, when I seriously started collecting stamps he designed this 12c stamp. Other stamp designs by him are the 4 cent and 6 cent below but these never made it onto our envelopes. This particular set (right) was iconic for the summer of 1964.

Portrait drawing of Karel van het Reve (1921-1999), scolar and writer and “learned brother” of one of our most (some say the most) important 20th century writers Gerard (1923-2006).

Jos van den Berg was a awarded several art prices and was a well respected (portrait) painter until his death in 1978, the same year my “grandmother on the wall” moved with us to our first home, that I started my professional career and our first son was born.

All pictures borrowed freely from the internet for friendly and educational use only.