Exhibition Extras:

Slideshow

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669)
Self-portrait in a flat cap and embroidered dress c.1642, etching
Gift of Bishop Monrad, 1869
Museum Of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

WAM Does Double Dutch!
Nieuw Zeeland – and Petrus van der Velden &
Rembrandt – the Experimental Etcher - 29 June - 23 August, 2009

For the past five hundred years, Dutch and Flemish artists have been renowned for tracing new pathways in the pictorial language of human culture. Dutch painters pioneered an extraordinary lineage of still-life painting, domestic interiors and marine painting including an exemplary etching tradition.

Rembrandt - The Experimental Etcher

This exhibition showcases twenty etchings by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) from the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. The exhibition will show at Whangarei Art Gallery Te Wharetaonga o Whangarei from late June, then at Tauranga Art Gallery and Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History.

The works are drawn from a group of fifty-six prints from the Bishop Monrad collection returned to Te Papa in 2007 from the Alexander Turnbull Library where they have been held since 1923. Featuring typical religious subjects, Rembrandt - the Experimental Etcher also shows scenes of daily Amsterdam life and portraits including a self-portrait of Rembrandt himself.

‘The works of this great master are exquisitely detailed and Te Papa is proud to present a selection of these unique works for tour’, said Te Papa’s Chief Executive, Dr Seddon Bennington. 

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) is widely recognised as the greatest etcher in the history of the medium, and his etchings have always been famous and sought after by collectors. He produced about three hundred etchings, often with the addition of drypoint and engraving. His prints were conceived and executed as independent works of art, not as reproductions of his paintings.

Bishop Ditlev Gothard Monrad (1811-1887) was prime minister and a high ranking churchman in Denmark but left his country due to his sense of responsibility for the defeat of Denmark and loss of Danish territory in the Danish-Prussian war of1864.

In 1866 Monrad, together with his family and five young Danish men who wished to emigrate, came to New Zealand and purchased land at Karere in the Manawatu. The family brought with them a large library of books and works of art – including etchings and engravings by Rembrandt, Durer and Van Dyck.

Bishop Monrad and his wife returned to Denmark after three years. Before returning, Monrad generously donated his collection of six hundred European prints to the New Zealand government which became the founding collection of the National Art Gallery (that amalgamated with the Dominion Museum to become Te Papa).

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Petrus van der Velden "After the Funeral", c.1870, oil on canvas
Bev and Murray Gow collection Auckland

Nieuw Zeeland – and Petrus van der Velden

To celebrate and coincide with the exhibition of the most famous Dutch artist of them all Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-69) premiering at the Whangarei Art Museum touring from Te Papa, we are thrilled to bring to the ‘public eye’ one of the grandest and most powerful paintings by Petrus van der Velden remaining in private hands - ‘After the Funeral.’ This magnificent and monumental work, almost 2 metres in length and one metre in hight is one of the renowned Marken Funeral Series in the Dutch Romantic Realist genre.

Van der Velden was championed by the famous Josef Israels, and as a ‘real painter’ by Vincent van Gogh, who after meeting him wrote (he) ‘made a very strong impression on me….a solid serious painter’. These famous Dutch artists; Van Gogh, Israels and Rembrandt, together with van der Velden are now all held in the Rijksmuseum collection in Amsterdam, Holland. Van der Velden is also represented in most major public galleries in New Zealand.

The Marken Funeral Series of paintings, the most famous of which is in the Christchurch Art Gallery collection, are an elegy to the cycle of life. Poignant but never morbid these paintings reflect the raw emotional and philosophical power of this artist who was able to metamorphose his sublime talent into some of the most iconic landscape paintings of New Zealand in our cultural history :– The Otira Gorge Series, one of which is also on display in this remarkable exhibition at WAM on loan from the Fletcher Trust collection.

Van der Velden arrived in New Zealand in 1890, exhibited widely and established a private art school in Christchurch. One of his most successful students there was Robert Proctor whose work ‘Hinemoa’ graces the art museum letterhead, and will also be on display in this sumptuous Winter Series exhibition program at WAM. In a note to Proctor as a student Petrus van der Velden wrote:
“every man can learn to draw, therefore every man can learn to know’.

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