Contrasts. 1944.

Oil on foam board. Measurements: 18 x 24 cm / 7.08 x 9.44 in. Signed in the lower left corner. On the back, the title, author and year of execution are written in pen.


Landscape -Witjens' favorite genre- made with fresh brushstrokes and light tones, shows us a serene picnic on a green hill; on the frame, the title is engraved: Médanos Uruguay. Two women are sitting on the grass, and two girls appear behind a bush and join them. Hairstyles and dresses take us back to his decade of realization, the 1940s. The style shows his origins and influences, from the Dutch painters of the Hague school, and from German Expressionism.


Adrianus Hendrikus Witjens (The Hague, Holland, 1881 - Buenos Aires, 1956) was a Dutch painter who adopted our homeland as his own. He was a disciple, in his hometown, of the painter and lithographer August Allebe. In 1912 he won the First Prize in the Bignall Competition. Towards the end of the decade he lived alternately between Haarlem and Utrecht. In 1920 he arrived in Buenos Aires, where he settled permanently. In this city he exhibited regularly from 1925, when he performed his first solo show at the Belgian Circle. Later he also did it in some cities in the interior of the country, such as Mendoza, Mar del Plata and Tandil. In 1947 he obtained the Special Prize for the Best Landscape of the Delta at the San Fernando Hall (Buenos Aires) and in 1948 he was awarded the Unique Prize for Foreigners at the National Salon of Plastic Arts. His works are part of collections in Europe and America, such as those of the Lakenhal Museum in Leiden, the Helmond Museum, the Ushuaia Maritime Museum, the Tigre Art Museum, the Amalia Lacroze Art Collection in Fortabat and the Bolsa de Comercio de Buenos Aires.


S.O.H-XI

AUTHOR JACQUES WITJENS

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