Etie van Rees (1890-1973)

Ecoline Adrienne (Etie) van Rees (1890-1973) was born in Buitenzorg (Indonesi_) in 1890. She spent her childhood on Java and a few years in Lausanne. As a self-taught artist she initially makes paintings, drawings and graphics. In 1919 she leaves for the Netherlands with her children. She will live in The Hague and later in Wassenaar. In 1938 she visits Java again. In 1952, Etie started making ceramics (small plastics) more or less by accident. She is also self-taught in this. Her debut as a ceramist only came in her 62nd year of life. She brings a quantity of clay to a seriously ill friend as a distraction, and finds this clay almost untouched after her friend's death. She now decides to sculpt with it herself. She likes the result and she fires these objects, hanging from a wire, in her pot stove. After firing, she paints the objects with oil paint. To her own surprise, she immediately achieved an extraordinary success with these character sculptures. After her first successes, she now also purchases an oven and glazes. Before she starts work, she always makes a pen sketch first. She uses ordinary brittle red-baked flower pot clay for modelling. Decorations are engraved with a scribe. Baking is at a lower temperature. Initially painted with oil paint. Later she uses engobes and underglaze paints, which are partly rubbed off after firing the objects and then covered with a transparent glaze layer. Often the pieces go in the oven four or five times until the desired result is obtained. Etie is qualified as the most spiritual and uninhibited among the Dutch ceramists of the fifties and sixties. In almost all her work the atmosphere of her Indian homeland can be felt. This country with its almost paradisiacal nature, where she feels deeply unhappy in the high society circles - which her parents were involved in - and often seeks refuge in nature. In 1959 she received a gold medal at the international ceramics exhibition in Ostend. In 1965 Etie moves to Aerdenhout. On November 14, 1973 she died in Barger-Compascuum. Etie has had many exhibitions at Kunsthandel Liernur in The Hague since the early 1950s. In 1964 she has a major solo exhibition ?Between man and animal, ceramics by Etie van Rees?, in Museum Boymans-van Beuningen in Rotterdam, afterwards traveling to Arnhem, Groningen, The Hague. In 1974 there is a commemorative exhibition at Het Kapelhuis, Amersfoort, 1974. Texts from: Spruit-Ledeboer, 1977. Work: Themes are mainly birds, fish, insects, sphinxes, pigs, marmots, monkeys and other true-to-life or fantasy animals. Her sculptures show human qualities and are often endearing. Some plastics are also decorated with feathers. She makes a bizarre world of intensely living, moving, true-to-life or fantastic beasts and people come to life.