Due to its great success, the retrospective exhibition of Ans Markus at Museum Jan van der Togt has been extended by three weeks: until January 28, 2018. The exhibition has attracted nearly 15,000 visitors so far.
Ans Markus explores the darker sides of life in a striking way, including the recent series of paintings "hidden sorrow" and "the pain of old age." She also painted a series of youth portraits of Frida Kahlo and Modigliani, expressing her admiration for her respected predecessors. In addition, there is a wide selection of older work on display, such as sketches, drawings, and smaller paintings, as well as sculptures in bronze and porcelain that Markus has been creating for several years.
With this new facet of her already multifaceted artistry, she attracted nearly 90,000 visitors to Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle after a successful exhibition. For the first time, all her creative expressions can be admired in one place.
Personal involvement
The art of Ans Markus (1947) forms a personal mythology that encompasses her own world of thought, experience, and feeling. Markus is characterized by a strong commitment to her fellow human beings. Her drawings, paintings, and, more recently, her bronze and porcelain sculptures are the result of a thorough and relentless self-examination, through which she gives voice to widely held feelings, especially among women. In "The Pain of Old Age," her own mother plays the leading role. Markus uses intimate and tranquil images to tell the story of her mother's final years in a nursing home. The portrait series "Hidden Sorrow" is not about women but about men. The artist zooms in on men who carry worries and sadness that the outside world knows nothing about. Their suffering prevents the men from showing their true faces.
Artist portraits
Following on from her tributes in the 1980s, between 2013 and 2015 Markus painted portraits of Frida Kahlo, Egon Schiele, Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Amadeo Modigliani, Edward Hopper, and Vincent van Gogh in her familiar realistic style. In doing so, she wondered whether these artists could have imagined in their youth what they would achieve with their art. To what extent is being an artist a destiny? With a self-portrait as a girl, Markus also asks herself this question and, in one fell swoop, places herself in the art-historical tradition of painters who take the human being as the starting point for their work.
Other tributes in the exhibition include couturiers Christian Dior, Coco Chanel, Hubert de Givenchy, Yohji Yamamoto, Vivienne Westwood, and Oscar de la Renta. There are also several portraits of famous Dutch people such as Arjan Ederveen, Freek de Jonge, and Job Cohen, as well as a selection from her impressive Medea cycle from the late 1990s. Paintings from the magical-realistic windmill series, with which Markus has managed to reach a large and loyal audience over the past decades, are also on display at the Jan van der Togt Museum.
Bronze sculptures and porcelain
A new aspect of Ans Markus' artistry is her bronze sculptures and small porcelain works. She created sculptures that are closely related to her paintings in terms of theme. The physical aspect of kneading clay gave her the outlet she needed at that time. This resulted in a large number of bronze sculptures.
Every Sunday until January 28, 2018, artist Ans Markus will be present at the Jan van der Togt Museum from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. to give visitors guided tours. The introductory tours will take place at 2:00 p.m. each day. From November 7, 2017, Markus' work will also be on display at the Amstel Hotel in Amsterdam.