World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 490 - Helen van der Veen

World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 490 – Helen van der Veen
Not so long ago I saw beautiful images of birds with an object in the Hague Art Circle. The sparrow, great tit, finch, swallow and kingfisher and other specimens of this special and graceful animal species carried something of a profession or hobby with them, sometimes somewhat hidden under the feathers! A book, a golden needle, binoculars, a camera and even a guitar.

The maker, Helen van der Veen, had made a calendar of it, with the title ‘Busy Birds’. I knew Helen van der Veen from the large murals and the trompe l’oeil/visual deception paintings that she made with her husband, Jille van der Veen, on two squares. But she also had her own repertoire, as became apparent when I visited her in their home in the Pander Complex in the city centre of The Hague.

Panoramas
In the living room I see a nature panorama on the wall on the left with a distant view. It has something Italian with its pine trees. But it is the landscape of South Limburg, Helen’s birth province, although she grew up as a blonde Indo from The Hague in Rijswijk, South Holland. I also see two painted cats and an artistic bird on the thermostat.
We are sitting at the table by the window, when I look out there we have a second panorama, but now for real. Helen: “The most beautiful view of The Hague.” A full and wide city panorama stretches out with the tower of the Grote Kerk, roofs of houses and in between all kinds of narrow inner city streets and a little further a group of high ministry towers in front of the Central Station.

From Groningen to The Hague
In the 1980s, Helen came from Groningen to the west. There she attended the Minerva School of Fine Arts, which was known for its figurative approach. She already worked and lived together with Jille in Groningen, and they alternately made use of the visual artist scheme. It could also have been Rotterdam, but The Hague offered a studio. Three years later, they were able to move into a house in Pander, an old furniture factory that had been empty for 35 years.

“At Minerva I learned about classical colour theory, perspective, composition theory and typography. We did model drawing, drew plants and flowers in the Hortus and designed letters. Jille was in the third grade, I was in the first. It was a nice education; good teachers, including several painters, including Matthijs Röling. Piet Pijn dealt with colour theory, Johannes Itten had formulated a theory about it during his time at Bauhaus. In the following years that theory was further developed. With Piet we went to the five classrooms with colour studies on the wall and he asked which colour would work best in a certain place. The approach was very broad, there was also room for fashion, sculpture and advertising/publicity. It produced many talents. For example, 36 painters in the book ‘The top hundred of the best painters’ in the Netherlands!”

Architecture and light play a major role in her work. I turn around again and see a work of hers of the Palace Garden in The Hague, with an elegant black window frame in front of it. “Painted with three tubes: red, yellow and blue. I mix everything myself. Then I use it to create the sunlight. This frame, the window frame, is also known in the Netherlands as ‘cowshed windows‘ (koestal raampjes).”

Murals
For a company like Exxon Chemical, they made their first large billboards in the studio. In the early nineties, Helen and Jille discovered a new field of work: large-format murals in public spaces, for companies, government and private individuals. She already had experience with architectural paintings, Jille had a series of paintings of shiny cars to his name and gave perspective lessons at the Classical Academy. For Helen, this resulted in quadratura works that fitted in well with the existing architecture, in which French doors and terraces could be seen.
“The vogue for white walls and the accompanying abstract Dutch design was finally over. We made meter-long paintings in parking garages, hospitals, art libraries, café-restaurants, cultural centers and at private homes. We often worked on scaffolding.” They worked all over the country. “We went somewhere after the morning traffic jam and came back after the evening traffic jam. We also stayed overnight. For example, when we painted for Dutch Railways (the NS) in Arnhem Station.”

Trompe l’oeil
In private homes they often painted objects, Trompe l’oeil / optical illusion and space-creating paintings, such as with Mrs. Engering, at the time alderman for Culture and Finance in The Hague. She lived (with her husband – then ambassador to South Africa) above the Driehoekjes, in the city centre. On the wall of her kitchen she made a large scene of a Normandy landscape with all kinds of fruit, cake and a bottle of wine with a personal label in the foreground.
For a house on the Oude Delft from 1650, they spent 42 days painting a paneled cupboard door behind which the shelves with plates and glasses were located. This early 1990s mural also quoted works by painters who hung in the Rijksmuseum, such as the Spanish painter Zurbaran. Across the street, in the bathroom of the then home of Prince Constantijn, they painted a landscape with infinite depth. Many examples can be seen on their website with the title ‘Wonderwall‘. The magazine Residence published a beautiful photo report about their work. In the long gate of their building, they painted a large work of a bird with a cherry in its beak on the wall (see image 1). Birds also regularly appeared in the landscapes. She shows a work in Delft with a great tit and swallow nests. “It was (and is) meticulous work, you always make the same hand movement. After Delft, my tendon was swollen. I was forced to rest for three weeks.”

Hard days
These were hard days. Then came the financial crisis of 2008/09 and the assignments stopped for a while. She started teaching computer and drawing. She supervised drawing students at the Koorenhuis, at Marcello’s Art Factory by Els and Marcello on the Koningin Emmakade, in Bario Transvaal and in De Plint in Leidschendam. And she offered and sold art at the artists’ association Pulchri.
She also picked up her old love of architectural paintings again and she painted dogs. After the second crisis, the corona crisis from 2020 to 2022, she also painted a series of houses and birds with a personal twist on request! She sent them on a light elm wood panel to the USA, England and the Czech Republic, among others.

The government, Imtech and the ABN Amro bank collection have a number of her works. Her – and Jille’s – panoramas and murals can be admired in many places in the country. “I have worked hard,” she says in conclusion. “I will no longer stand on a staircase or scaffolding.” She will continue with her bird calendar. A second issue will be published and then a Hague houses calendar will be published.
Interested parties can have a house or dog miniature made – behind me I see a nice example. But the big work is done.
Image 10: Helen and Jille 

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https://inzaken.eu/2024/08/22/de-vogels-en-de-panoramas-van-helen-van-der-veen/