After Anna Verweij stopped attending the art academy in the late fifties, she began to experiment with materials and techniques. In 1958, she decided to simply go by the name “Anna”. She used leftover materials to create jewelry and small wall hangings. Soon, she devoted herself entirely to textile, the material that would remain her faithful companion throughout her entire career. In the sixties, she delved into designing large, exuberantly colored wall hangings.
In the following decade, her textile work became increasingly detailed and acquired a more conceptual nature. During this period, the concept of textile as visual art was constantly under discussion. This material was still primarily associated with applied art. With her work, Anna gave an inspiring and relativizing twist to this discussion. For her, the boundary between the two “arts” was not a fixed concept.
My Place at the Table
One of Anna’s most notable works is My Place at the Table 2 (1972/73). A pristine white cotton tablecloth is laid over a wooden table, adorned with a refined black embroidered flower border. One of the narrow edges of the cloth culminates in a chaotic array of stitches. In an earlier work, Alice Writes to Alice (1971), Anna shows how a winding strip of fabric transforms into a mysterious script. With a light sense of humor, Anna comments on the contradictions in human behavior and the conflict between inner and outer appearances in pieces like this. Experimental use of flannel, jute, cotton, silk, and printers, in combination with plastic and foam rubber, is characteristic in these works. Her love for nature also makes frequent appearances in her oeuvre, for example in her design drawings of flower fields based on compositions by Piet Mondrian.
In the year of 1978, Anna fell gravely ill. In the final period of her life, transformations of shape take center stage. She creates silhouettes of female figures, modeled after her own body. An exemplary piece is The Leap (1979), which depicts a figure pole vaulting: a clear allusion to the transition between life and death. A large portion of her body of work was realized in the last two years of her life, with her most significant exhibitions also taking place during this time. In 1979, her solo exhibition opened at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and in 1984, she was posthumously honored by Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
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