Louis Haver, another forgotten printmaker (part I)

Lodewijk Bernardus Franciscus Haver

Known as Louis (or Lou) Haver

(Groningen December 13^th 1906 – July 21th 1969 Hilversum)

Largely forgotten and neglected Dutch painter and printmaker.

To me Louis Haver is one of the most charming although very much obscured Dutch printmakers and I have been planning for some time to investigate his life and give him the attention he deserves. The discovery of this latest print is a good opportunity for sharing my first results. The print depicts a typical “viskaar” or traditional fish-well. A fishermen's contraption to keep alive the catch of the day.

  

Unlike his contemporary Arie Zonneveld (1905-1941) Louis, or Lou, never grew to great popularity or fame and to this day his name is only remembered by a few gourmet print collectors. Although over the years many (some 75) prints came to my knowledge they hardly ever turn up in auctions, which might be an indication of low edition numbers. Most of them have not edition  numbered but a few have. 

To illustrate his obscurity and "unknownness": one of his finest prints is shown in the great book “die Fruhzeit des Modernen Holzschnitts” (that I've discussed in the Blog before). It is in the vast museum collection of well known print collectors Hans and Franz Joseph van der Grinten, but even so in the book it is attributed to a phantasy “Louis Han”. It probably is showing the "Noorderhaven", the "Hooge der A" or adjacent canal in his native Groningen in winter. I used to drive by this location for many years to the University (UMCG) Clinic. This print is very similar in execution to the above which, because of it's subject, it was most probably created in Kortenhoef.  

Viskaar near Kortenhoef by Aris Knikker (1887-1962) 

Viskaar near Kortenhoef by Bernard van Beek (1875-1941)

Viskaar near Kortenhoef by Greetje Mesdag-van Calcar who build
and owned the studio that later became Louis' home in 1960.

Louis was the youngest son of sculptor Wilhelmus Antonius Theodorus (or Wim) Haver (1870-1937) and Geertje Meierdres (1870-1946) and after being taught by his father young Louis visited the Arts and Crafts School in Groningen.

His father created the sculpture over the entrance of the Catholic Hospital on the “Verlengde Herenweg” in Groningen (above) Where I was robbed of both my tonsils in the late 1950’s by the way. A very traumatic experience.

Kortenhoef by Bernard van Beek (1874-1941) 

Aged 27 Louis decided to settle in the picturesque rural village of Kortenhoef in 1933 in the Province of Utrecht, at the time a popular painters centre. In 1935 he married Frederike Burgwal (1899- 1967) and was probably living and working as an artist in Kortenhoef. It is known he shared studio’s and exhibited in an artist centre that were created by fellow artists Flip Hamers (1909-1995) and Peter van den Braken (1896-1979). The couple had three daughters. 

View on Kortenhoef by Paul Gabriël (1828-1903) 

In Kortenhoef, in the middle of a typical Dutch “polder” landscape, in the beginning of the 19^th century famous Dutch artists like Paul Gabriel (1828-1903) visited for inspiration and to paint and over the years an artist colony developed. In 1904 the widowed painter Geesje Mesdag-van Calcar (1850-1936) and pupil of Paul Gabriel had build a privat studio to accommodate her in summer. 

"De Karekiet" (build in 1904) in 1964

This wooden studio, build on wooden poles over the water, was to become the meeting point for many artists but after the widow Mesdag had died it was sold and transformed into a youth hostel, named “de Karekiet” (the Reed-warbler)  

Geesje Mesdag was married to banker’s son Taco Mesdag (1829-1902), the brother of famous marine and Panorama Mesdag painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag (1831-1915) both also from Groningen. In 1903 she donated their important and precious collection of Dutch Impressionist (“The Hague School“) paintings to the Groningen Museum to form to this day a significant and most important lump of its collections.   

From a close friend of the artist I learned Louis’ marriage ended in divorce in 1959 and meeting  youth-hostel “mother” Maartje Hopman (born Rotterdam, june 13^th 1913) he fell in love, and married her in 1960 moving in to stay. From the friend I learned also about his love for nature and sea-fishing, receiving several private photographs like the one above.

All Louis' prints show his love for the outdoors, the wildlife, birds, fish, wild flowers etc. They all show a simple and straightforward approach. His bird observations and prints  resemble closely those made by German printmaker Emil Pottner (1872-1942). 

Emil Pottner 

And his boats those by Daniel Staschsus (1872-1953), always with keen  observation and attention for detail, atmosphere and animal behavior. 

Louis Haver 

Daniël Staschus

Please leave a comment and let me know if an additional posting with more examples of Louis' prints would be appreciated.  

A special thanks to Rob de Mooij for sharing pictures from his collection and Ina de Graaf for sending biographical comments. 

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

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

Abe Gerlsma: etcher of Friesland

Abe Gerlsma

(1919 - 2012)

Dutch painter and graphic artist. 

Technician and inventor of mechanical agricultural devices.

Neils’ latest posting revealing Jean Francois Rafaelli and his world in “Adventures in the print trade” is the immediate reason for this posting. It creates the opportunity pointing towards his great and very informative Blog and showing a recent find and acquisition (above "Winter in waterland") by a charming and sensitive artist who, I’m sure, most of my readers have never encountered.

Here’s a selection, examples of his oblong printed etchings often 13 x 42 cm (2:7), showing my direct environment, graced as I am living in the most beautiful province of Friesland in the Netherlands. 

Gerlsma is an artist always aware and never tired of the changing light over his native and beloved Friesland. Besides his straight forward etchings Gerlsma also expertimented in aquatint resulting in soft toned and even more delicate and atmospheric landscapes. He needn't travel far from home for inspiration.  

He was creative until 2000, leaving some 180 works and was awarded an exhibition last year in 2012. Even the The Kochi Museum in Japan bought a print for its collections.

As an encore two of my favorite aquatint etchings. All pictures are mouse-clickable to embiggen.  

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

Han Mulder

Johanna (Anna, Han) Mulder

(b. the Hague, 1935 - )

Dutch graphic artist.

Recently I was given this print as a present by my old friend Bauke "that was more befitting to my rather then his collection". And do I love it.  

There's absolutely nothing I can find other then the artist's birthday and place (the Hague, 16th oktober 1935) and her involvement with Dutch artist Gaby Bovelander (b.1931) and that she may have lived (and worked ?) in Apeldoorn and/or Arnhem in the late 1960's. That's all. 

There're two things that makes it both charming and interesting: A) The goat itself, immediately reminding of the most famous of all Dutch "poor men's cows" of them all. By short lived but brilliant painter and printmaker Jan Mankes (1889-1920). He did both a painting and a woodblock print of his goat. And Arie Zonneveld  (1905-1941) did a great lam.

I have no intention try showing all goats on prints here. But there's a tradition of goats on prints from Nicholas Berchem (1620-1683) to William Nicholson (1872-1949)

And only recently I discovered the wonderful animal world of Kurt Meyer-Eberhard (1895-1977). 

Who, I learned, happened to be a student of Walter Klemm (1883-1857). He preferred a lifelong private career as an etcher of animals over a professorate.

And I stumbled over this most charming Dutch "one off" by Gra (Gerharda Johanna Wilhelmina) Rueb (1885-1972). She did only one in this medium and I think she was familiar with the works of Samuel Jesserun de Mesquita, Mr. Artis Zoo, whom I presented earlier in this Blog. 
     

And there's B) the second feature of this little print. It's the brilliant and clever positioning of the outline or suggestion of buildings at the upper most margins of the composition thus creating a "dramatic" change in perspective and great suggestion of depth. With just a bit of gray paint. I've seen it applied in several other works, like this woodcut by Rudolf Treumann (1873-1981) above.

But applied most spectacularly I remembered it in this great print "the timber Crane" by Australian Ethel Spowers (1890-1947). It's that little triangle of light , the few centimeters of roof tops in the upper right corner that changes the way the brain digests what the eyes began exploring. Glancing over the scene from lower left upwards. Because the black mass and direction of the crane's boom are working as an forceful invitation to "start over here". Enhancing a feeling of enormity even more dramatically as the already chosen very low viewpoint not "allowing" the whole crane in the composition: there's no need to show the whole of the huge crane because of this great "trick". A truly spectacular work.  

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I've seen it also in a prints of River Seine in Paris but wasn't able to dig them up from my pictures archive because I didn't label them accurately enough as such. When I find them I will, but maybe there'll be help from readers who know more examples. 

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

   

Jacob Mooij, Dutch printmaker in Harderwijk

Jacob Mooij

(1889-1938)

Dutch woodblock printmaker, publisher and

 printing press owner.

I first stumbled over this forgotten and hardly known Dutch printmaker when I saw (but missed) this large print of a Utrecht alley in a local auction site. Only recently I found another one, a picturesque scene in one of the oldest (esth. 1648 and today former) University cities of the Netherlands, the fishing port of Harderwijk. Before the Zuiderzee was closed by the Afsluitdijk in 1933.  In the 18th century Harderwijk was also nicknamed the Athens of Gelderland (province). Carl Lineaus, the Danish botanist studied here in 1735. It is also located on the edge of the Dutch Bible belt.

Usually the old Lighthouse and gate in one of the remaining towers and gate to the walled medieval city, is the subject of numerous works of art: it’s as iconic as the Martini tower in Groningen and the Waterpoort in Sneek. Right: the old Lighthouse by Cees Bolding (1897-1979) one of the finest Dutch painters and printmakers. 

Jacob Mooij was born as the son of the evangelist Arend Mooij who stayed and preached in several Dutch and Belgian cities, married a girl from province Zeeland and  did what the Bible ordered him to do: create a large family. Jacob started a publishing and printing  business in Harderwijk with his brother Herman Willem (1872-1932) while another brother, Maarten, also preached the gospel like his father and uncles before him.

Paradijspoortje ("Gate to paradise") in Harderwijk: wood/linoblock by Jacob Mooij, etching by Herman J. Ansingh (1880-1957) and woodblock by Arie van der Boon (1886-1961)

and an oil painting by David Schulman (1881-1966)

In Harderwijk he will have met Henri Wils (1892-1967) the  interned Belgian printmaker who’d fled, with tens of thousands of compatriots, the siege of Antwerp in 1914. From Wils, who was a student of Eduard Pellens (1872-1947) in Antwerp (Emile Verpilleux (1888-1964) also was) Jacob Mooij learned the art of woodblock printing. Jacob married Geertje Visser in 1915 and both men later (around 1922) moved to Rotterdam were Jacob started a printing press and Wils a career as a printmaker and books illustrator.

Harderwijk Old Lighthouse and Vispoort (Fish-gate): by Henri Wils, postcard, Herman (H.J.) Ansingh, Wijnand Otto Jan Nieuwenkamp (1884-1950) and Louis Haver (1906-1969)

  

The influence of Pellens (who had been a student of August Lepère (1849-1918) in Paris and one of the founding fathers of Modern printmaking) is unmistakenly evident in all Wils’ prints. Wils never excelled, never changed from the stiff city views and sticked to his style using just two or three blocks and creating recognizable, framable and affordable wall decorations. For a generation of Dutch city bourgois. 

Antwerpen by Henri Wils and his teacher professor Eduard Pellens.

Wils was a bread and butter printmaker and he had his prints printed mechanically at the printing press of his (former) employers, the publisher and printing press of Kok in nearby Kampen. Wils when living in Harderwijk will have without a doubt had knowledge of the printing and publishing activities of the Mooij brothers. Henri Wils and his legacy in print will feature in an upcoming posting (ending the Antwerp School of Printmaking postings)    

The influence of Wils is evident in Mooij who, I believe, eventually proved to be far more creative and artistic then his master using more color blocks and guiding a much freer hand cutting the linoleum. And of course he decided to pull his prints by hand. Hopefully more prints by Mooij will surface in future.

All pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only.
All pictures are mouse-clickable to embiggen.