Piet van der Hemartist • painter • watercolourist • draughtsman • printmakerWirdum 1885-1961 Den Haag

At the beginning of the 20th century, Piet van der Hem belonged to the group of 'moderns', which also included Gestel and Sluijters. He mainly found his subjects in the fashionable nightlife and he liked to travel a lot. In Paris, Rome, Madrid and Moscow he painted life on the streets and in cabarets, dance halls and music halls. During a stay in Volendam and Edam from 1917 to 1919, he was inspired by beach and fishing life and by the fashionable tourists who visited these fishing places. In addition to being a painter, he also worked as an illustrator and political draftsman for 'De Nieuwe Amsterdammer', 'De Haagsche Post' and 'De Haagsche Courant'. A reviewer wrote of him: 'Here is a draftsman of admirable skill, agility, clarity and pointedness at work.' Van der Hem himself said: 'I have worked hard all my life and because I know my trade well, I can make things. But I don't think anyone will write a dissertation on my work. I don't think they will lie awake whether Van der Hem meant this or that with a dash of red. Fortunately, he spoke these words at a later age, when he devoted himself to painting traditional portraits, but had already made his name as a modernist well before that. In his own words, he had always followed a 'fixed course', in which the common thread in his career was imagining people.

Born in 1885 in the Frisian town of Wirdum, Van der Hem, as a twelve-year-old orphan, was taken in by his uncle's family in Leeuwarden. After the Rijks-HBS in Leeuwarden, his art teacher encourages him to go to the State School of Applied Arts in Amsterdam. In addition, van der Hem also follows drawing training at the Rijksakademie. With a royal grant he will work for a year at Montmarte in Paris. Fascinated by modern street and nightlife, he draws and paints circus performers, clowns, dancers and women and men who engage in riotous nightlife, as Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, Kees van Dongen and Jan Sluijters did before. Back in Amsterdam, he made his debut in 1906 at the exhibition of the Sint-Lucas artists' association. There is the innovative work of the Amsterdam luminists Jan Sluijters, Leo Gestel and Piet Mondriaan in bright colors and loose brushstrokes. Inspired by this, Van der Hem also painted for some time in a moderately luministic style. He not only depicts the fashionable world, he is also interested in working-class neighborhoods and he captures the inhabitants, as he always did, in lively, anecdotal scenes. Between 1909 and 1913, Van der Hem had a number of successful exhibitions at, among others, Kunsthandel Boussod, Valadon & Cie. Due to his daring choice of subject, he was briefly considered to be one of the representatives of Amsterdam luminism. His painting style and use of color, on the other hand, were less extreme than his more avant-garde contemporaries. Van der Hem himself said about this: 'I was modern, but not extreme.'

The rapid developments of the early 20th century in Dutch art are difficult for Van der Hem to keep up with and he shifts his focus from painting and drawing lighthearted, elegant scenes to creating powerful portraits. This is reflected in the serious, almost gloomy portraits he made in 1913 in Katwijk and 1917/1918 in Volendam. When he finally settled in Scheveningen in 1918, he chose to paint true-to-life portraits on behalf of wealthy Americans and Dutch people, including the Royal Family. He also makes some hunting scenes (hunting is his hobby), book illustrations, posters, advertising posters and political cartoons on commission. By painting these portraits he ensures a stable income, which is very important to Van der Hem, who had an eternal fear of being short of money. His great technical ability and the good likeness of his portraits make him a successful society portraitist. Over the years, he has portrayed many prominent figures, including the dancer Mata Hari, the state portrait of The Royal Family from 1925/1926 and the Wedding Blessing of Princess Juliana and Prince Bernhard from 1937.

When German censorship completely dominated the Dutch press in 1941, Van der Hem ceased his activities as a political cartoonist. After the war he did not continue with this and concentrated entirely on portrait painting until his death in 1962.