One hundred years ago, a group of young artists in Groningen founded De Ploeg.
These avant-gardists, including Jan Wiegers, Jan Altink, H.N. Werkman, and Johan Dijkstra, felt it was time to abandon the 19th-century ideals and plow through the landscape of art. A chance encounter between Wiegers and German expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner in Davos, Switzerland, accelerated the group’s development. In a time when the horrors of World War One caused many artists to halt their experimentation, this group continued with dynamic brushstrokes, creating brightly colored landscapes and expressive portraits, thus establishing their own Northern expressionism. They also utilized printmaking as a medium for their experimentation. The Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, a collector of De Ploeg’s work since the 1930s, held a major exhibition of their graphic art in 1960. To celebrate 100 years of De Ploeg, Groningen organized a grand event, with the exhibition at the Groninger Museum as its centerpiece. The Gemeentemuseum, located on the other side of the country by the sea, joins in the celebration with a small but exquisite exhibition showcasing De Ploeg’s graphic work once again.
www.ftn-books.com has now the invitation for this exhibition available.
