Five Day Sale

At a house party that Kees Verwey organized in 1941, he met writer and columnist Godfried Bomans who was taken along by a mutual friend. Both lived in Haarlem and a friendship arose. The two wrote letters to each other, drank coffee together and took walks around the Haarlemmerhout. Verwey: ‘I don’t know anyone who has wanted to make such a regular visit to that café with me, interspersed with some walking.’ It was not always smooth sailing between the men, the friendship had its conflicts: Verwey was known for his stubborn and obstinate personality. In his art too, he did not conform to rules or a particular movement. Verwey painted and watercolored almost exclusively portraits, flowers and still lifes from his chaotic studio. He considered his own style as a continuation of the Hague School and the Amsterdam impressionists, who placed everything ‘in a transparent light’. He combined the impressionistic of the watercolor with the colorful expressionism of the modernists. These two watercolors come from the estate of Godfried and his wife Pietsie. With quick lines of chalk, Verwey manages to depict a domestic scene at his friend’s kitchen table, ‘for Godfried 58 years old, from Kees and Jeanne’ is written underneath. It shows the warm bond between the two couples. The flowers were also a gift, as can be read from the annotation on the support cardboard: ‘Received from Kees Verwey, Sunday April 23rd 1961. Godfried Bomans’.

Riding or cycling through the landscape of the Netherlands, you sometimes suddenly feel like you’re in a painting. By Willem Maris or Jan de Haas, for example, who painted mostly Dutch landscapes. But what the painters were actually concerned with was depicting cattle, and especially cows: a cherished animal in the Dutch landscape. The cow occupies a special place in Dutch art history; as early as the 17th century, the ruminant was a beloved subject in painting. Paulus Potter’s life-size Bull from 1647 is now an icon and would have been a favorite of Willem Maris who studied Potter’s oeuvre and even made copies and variants of it. In the 19th century, some Hague School painters elevated cattle painting to their specialty. For example, Willem Maris was known for his paintings of animals in the Dutch landscape, where he had a preference for cows and ducks. He regularly went out to sketch in the rural surroundings of The Hague; the meadows formed his study area. “I don’t paint cows, but light effects” is a famous quote from him. The way he let his subjects be touched by light and the fleeting impression of a certain moment of the day in his paintings made Maris also known as the impressionist of the Hague School. In contrast to Maris, Jan de Haas had to travel quite a bit for his Dutch livestock pieces. Following in Willem Roelofs’ footsteps, De Haas moved to Brussels in 1857, from where he regularly came to the Netherlands for inspiration. He painted many red-and-black-spotted cattle or other sturdy modeled animals. De Haas worked en plein air a lot and used his drawn and painted studies outside in the studio to produce larger works. In both Summer landscape with cattle by De Haas and Grazing cows by the water by Maris, you can see how much attention was paid to light effects.

At the beginning of the 19th century, many artists settled in The Hague and there was a need for a society to promote the interests of the visual arts. With this idea in mind, Pulchri Studio was founded in 1847 ‘for the practice of the beautiful’ by Lambertus Hardenberg, Willem Roelofs, Bartholomeus Johannes van Hove, Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch and his nephew Jan Weissenbruch. Both artists and art lovers, who often acted as patrons, could become members. Many artists, including Johannes Bosboom, Jozef Israëls and Hendrik Willem Mesdag joined. Art discussions were organized to exchange ideas with each other. In addition, an important part was to paint, draw and sculpt together from a model. The number of members continued to increase and the society moved several times because the space became too small. The Hofje van Nieuwkoop was exchanged for Prinsegracht 57 and in 1898 Hendrik Willem Mesdag bought the building at Lange Voorhout 15 together with his brother Taco where the current Pulchri is still located. With an auction of works of art by members, the thorough renovation was financed and finally opened in 1900 with the first member exhibition. These sales exhibitions during spring and autumn, where members presented their work to the public, were very successful. Various movements were represented, from impressionism to expressionism and luminism. This made it possible to study new developments closely. There was also enough room for relaxation within the association. Artists’ birthdays were celebrated extensively with dinners and meetings with singing, recitations and especially tableaux vivants ensured that the parties, only accessible to members, became famous.

Floris Arntzenius became a member of Pulchri at the age of 28 in 1892. He remained a member for his entire life and fulfilled the role of both commissioner and secretary of the association. Arntzenius painted landscapes in the style of the Hague School, colorful beach scenes, still lifes, self-portraits and portraits of friends and acquaintances he met at Pulchri and Café Riche such as Frederic Jacobus van Rossum du Chattel and Jan Adriaan Frederiks playing cards. In 2022, Pulchri Studio celebrated its 175th anniversary. The society is still an important meeting place for artists and enthusiasts and lectures, concerts, parties and about 60 contemporary art exhibitions are organized every year.