JACOBA VAN HEEMSKERCK
(The Hague 1876 – 1923 Domburg)
COMPOSITION [ Haventje met gemeerde botters]
oil on canvas, 56 x 60.5 cm
signed lower right: JacobavHeemskerck
date: 1913
provenance:
- Herman Eduard d’Audretsch (1872-1966), The Hague;
- Paul Brandt Auctioneers, estate of the above, Amsterdam 25-31 October 1966, lot 212;
- Paul Brandt Auctioneers, Amsterdam 28 November 1967, lot 111;
- H.W. van den Landen, Baarn, the Netherlands;
- Christies Amsterdam, 13 June 2017, lot 254;
- with Galerie Ronny van de Velde, Antwerp.
exhibited:
- Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Moderne Kunst Kring, 7 November – 7 December 1913, no. 83;
- Knokke, Galerie Ronny van de Velde, Josef Peeters en zijn tijdgenoten, August 3 – September 15, 2019.
literature:
- A.H. Huussen jr., J.F.A. van Paaschen-Louwerse, Jacoba van Heemskerck van Beest, Schilderes uit roeping, Zwolle, 2005, cat. no. 22.
During a brief period when modern art flourished in the Netherlands at the dawn of the twentieth century Jacoba van Heemskerck painted Composition in 1913. At the time there was an intense artistic exchange among the international avant garde. In most cases Dutch artists reacted on rather than contributed to the latest stylistic developments. Van Heemskerck was an exception. She had a successful international career which was launched when her style transformed from Cubism to Expressionism in 1913. The present painting is a beautiful example of this fascinating transformation.
Composition was exhibited at the Moderne Kunstkring exhibition in 1913. The Dutch artist society was founded by Conrad Kickert and Jan Sluiters while working in Paris in 1910. Inspired by the art scene in the French capital they wanted to promote modern avant garde art in the Netherlands. With exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam they showcased the latest international and national trends in 1911, 1912 and 1913. Works by Pablo Picasso, George Braque, Van Heemskerck, Piet Mondrian, Paul Cezanne, Lodewijk Schelfhout, Jan Toorop, Paul Gauguin, Franz Marc, Kees van Dongen, Henri le Faucconier, Vassily Kandinsky and many others caused a shockwave among the conservative audience.
Else Berg, Charley Toorop, Marie Laurencin and Van Heemskerck were the only female artists that were invited to show their work at the exhibitions. – among them only Van Heemskerck was represented at all three exhibitions.
Cubist works were at the center of attention at the Moderne Kunstkring’s exhibition in 1912, after having been presented for the first time to a wider audience at the Salon des Indepéndants in Paris only one year before. The art historical importance of Cubism can hardly be overestimated within stylistic and conceptual developments in the twentieth century. It formed the basis of a completely new approach to art. Cubism provided artists with the opportunity to create a radical, new visual language that was based on the expression of personal perceptions and the essence of things instead of their physical appearance (fig.1). For many artists, like Van Heemskerck, engaging with Cubism was a catalyst leading them towards the discovery of their artistic identity and authentic style.
Van Heemskerck experimented with Cubism in 1912 and 1913 (fig. 2). Most notably the presence of geometric shapes, the absence of perspective and a muted color palette helped her to further develop her ideas. In Composition she uses these elements to create a new authentic style. The motif of Composition is not fragmented anymore and the artist emphasized contours by applying bold black outlines which will become typical for Van Heemskerck’s later work.
fig. 1 Georges Braque, Bouteille et poissons, c. 1910-12, oil on canvas, 62 x 75 cm, Tate Modern, London, inv.no. T004455. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2024
fig. 2 Jacoba van Heemskerck, Composition no. 6, 1913, oil on canvas, 120 x 100 cm, Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, inv. no. 2072.
In 1913 the influential art dealer, writer, composer, musician and publisher Herwarth Walden organized the Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon in Berlin. The painters Franz Marc and August Macke curated this exhibition. Van Heemskerck, who had been invited to exhibited her work at the show, travelled to Berlin to see the exhibition and to meet Walden in person. This visit was fundamental for the development of her career and the start of a long-lasting friendship with Walden. The art dealer immediately acknowledged Van Heemskerck’s potential and exhibited twenty-two works by the artist at his famous Galerie Der Sturm in 1914 thereby launching her career in Germany. Van Heemskerck was the only Dutch artist represented by Galerie Der Sturm. Walden’s great esteem of her art translated into ten solo exhibitions at his gallery. The gallery represented the best German avant garde artists, yet none of them had their works on the front cover of the Sturm Magazine than Van Heemskerk.
Van Heemskerck was a religious and spiritual person. She became a member of the Theosophical Society in the Netherlands in 1910. In the following years she became, like Kandinsky and Walden, increasingly interested in Rudolf Steiner and his theories. She joined his Anthroposophical Society in the Netherlands in 1915. Within theosophical and anthroposophical theories nature holds an important position. The spiritual perception of nature, the study of nature beyond its physical appearance, inspired Van Heemskerck to focus on painting land- and seascapes. As sailing boats were never far away in The Hague or Domburg, where the artist was based at the time, they were part of the scenery that inspired her work and became an important motive within Van Heemskerck’s oeuvre. Composition is the first work featuring these transport vehicles that connect earth, water and wind, three of the four elements. Within some of her seascapes the boats are metaphoric elements that contribute to Van Heemskerck’s attempt to create landscapes as universal images comparable to Kandinsky’s apocalyptic landscapes containing mountains and knights.
Around 1913 Van Heemskerck started to give her work abstract titles. Composition obviously doesn’t refer to a specific place. Nonetheless it is known that the harbor in Veere, a picturesque seventeenth-century town in the province of Zeeland was the source of inspiration for the present painting. The moored sailing boats are Hoogaars, a typical local boat that was used for fishing in the regional shallow waters. Veere is circa twenty kilometers away from coastal town Domburg.
Domburg is an important town within Dutch art history. The area has a characteristic light and picturesque surroundings. Jan Toorop, the most successful and internationally acknowledged living artist in the Netherlands around 1900, spent his summers here from 1897. His presence attracted befriended, like-minded artists in the following years and Domburg turned into an artist colony, highly popular among the Dutch avant garde. It was here that Mondrian had his stylistic breakthrough that helped him to abandon naturalism in 1908. Even Dutch artists who worked in Paris such as Lodelijk Schelfhout, Conrad Kickert, Peter Alma, Jan Sluiters travelled to Domburg in the summer. On the beach in an especially erected small pavilion (fig. 3) summer exhibitions were held from 1911 to 1921.
Van Heemskerck and her partner Marie Tak van Poortvliet played an important role within Domburg’s cultural climate. Tak van Poortvliet hoped that the sea air would improve Van Heemskerck’s poor health. In 1905 she acquired a piece of land and commissioned their summer residence Villa Loverdale. An atelier was built for Van Heemskerck in the villa’s garden in about 1911. Many friends of the couple including artists, art dealers, writers, musicians, doctors, psychiatrists and anthrophosophists stayed with them during their visits to Domburg. Wilhelm Uhde, Willem Zeylmans van Emmichoven, Toorop, Schelfhout, Herwalth and Nell Walden, to name a few.
Fig. 3 Artists in front of the exhibition pavilion on the beach in Domburg in 1911. Van Heemskerck and Tak van Poortvliet are wearing a hat and tie, Van Heemskerk is standing in the door post. Jan Toorop, Annie Hall, Charlie Toorop, Jan Heyse and Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig can also be identified.
Part of the attention for Van Heemskerck work is until today due to her connection with Mondrian, one of the world’s most famous twentieth century artists. They belonged to the same generation and both had successful international careers. The Dutch conservative audience thought their work was too modern and radical. Therefore, the importance of their endeavors was first acknowledged abroad. Van Heemskerck and Mondrian were friends and worked alongside each other in Domburg on some occasions. Mondrian made sketches of a tree in Villa Loverdale’s garden that were the starting point for his painting Evening: Red Tree which Tak van Poortvliet acquired. Theosophy and anthropology provided both with intellectual inspiration for their work. They explored the stylistic possibilities of Symbolism, Luminism and Cubism more or less simultaneously. While Mondrian established an abstract and geometric style to depict nature in 1913 Van Heemskerk took a different turn with Composition. She had developed into a mature and independent artist who choose to pursue her own artistic journey.
Art dealer Herman Eduard d’Audretsch (1872-1966) is the first known owner of Composition. He founded his gallery Kunstzaal d’Audretsch in The Hague in 1913. He knew Van Heemskerck personally. Probably he acquired the picture directly from the artist. They shared an interest in avant garde art and German expressionism. d’Audretsch collaborated with Walden and organized an exhibition Expressionisten en Kubisten showing work by Marc, Kandinsky, Van Heemskerck and Paul Klee in 1916. The art dealer sold art from his collection after his retirement in 1947. He kept the present painting in his possession until his death in 1966.
Jacoba van Heemskerck at her atelier, 1915. photo: RKD