Jan Pieter Terwey - 'Mountain road with bench and person'

Jan Pieter Terwey (1883-1965)

'Mountain path with bench and person'
East Indian ink drawing
approx. 31 x 43 cm
provided with monogram at the bottom left.

The Dutch artist Jan Pieter Terwey, who had lived in Switzerland since 1913, was a master in the art of capturing ephemeral natural phenomena. After living in the Graubünden and Ticino, he moved to the Biensee region in 1921 and created work of high quality there, but hardly recognized today. After studying in Amsterdam, he began a promising career as a painter in the Netherlands. He exhibited – among other places – in the prestigious Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Although Terwey was occupied with religious and symbolist themes and still lifes in his early years, he placed the landscape at the center of his work upon his arrival in Switzerland. He proudly positioned himself against the trends conveyed by the abstract and concrete art of his contemporaries. He was more interested in a new interpretation of the figurative, as he wrote in 1915 '[...] as far as I know and feel, it would be a matter of finding an element in miserable reality through which the representation of this reality would gain in value.' Confronted with the post-impressionist movements and the art of Vincent van Gogh, Terwey then creates landscapes, where the different moods of nature are executed on canvas with extraordinary technical virtuosity. For its retrospective exhibition of Jan Pieter Terwey, the NMB Nouveau Musée Bien brings together works from various private collections in a unique way. The opportunity to highlight the wide range of work by this artist. In the context of the exhibition, a French and German publication will be published with the texts of Fanny Wisard and Annelise Zwez, shedding light on the work and life of Terwey for the first time.