2015 – Guus van den Hout (red.) Jaap Schreurs. De kwetsbaarheid van het bestaan/The Vulnerability of Existence. Eindhoven: Timmer Art Books/Lecturis.

A bilingual art book about the work of Schreurs. A French and a German translation of the texts are available on this website.

Jaap Schreurs: The Vulnerability of Existence

Monograph Publication Information

Contents

1. Synopsis

2. Authors

3. Context

4. Previous activities

5. Assistance

7. Contacts

1. SYNOPSIS

Title:

            Jaap Schreurs: The Vulnerability of Existence.

The monograph will be published in English and Dutch by Timmer Art Books/Lecturis.  German and French translations of the text will be available on website www.jaapschreurs.com. .

Illustrations:

76 high quality reproductions of paintings, gouaches, etchings and drawings from various stylistic periods of Schreurs’ life.

(Please note that the illustrations in the present manuscript have been printed on a basic printer, so the colours do not match those in the originals!)

Contents:

INTRODUCTION (drs. Guus van den Hout, editor)

CHAPTER ONE: THE INSIDE OUTSIDE. AN OVERVIEW OF THE OEUVRE OF JAAP SCHREURS

Art historian Adrienne Quarles van Ufford gives an overview of Schreurs’ style and themes.

CHAPTER TWO: JAAP SCHREURS AS A MONOCULAR PAINTER

          From the age of fourteen, Jaap Schreurs was blind in one eye. Here, the ophthalmologist Philippe Lanthony examines the extent to which this disability may have influenced his painting.

CHAPTER THREE: THROUGH THE EYES OF SCHREURS

            The philosopher Chris van Haeften considers the existential meanings of the large dark eyes found in many of Schreurs’ figures, and their powerful impact on the viewer.

CHAPTER FOUR: EXPERIENCING SCHREURS

   Piet Bakker interviewed twenty-seven persons of differing ages and backgrounds, Who were asked to look at one of Schreurs’ paintings for a longer time than usual. The respondents explain what feelings their engagement with the works evoked. Bakker shows that the same works can produce completely different emotions in different people. The interviews also show that looking at a painting for a longer period can produce a more nuanced impact: the viewer begins to see humour in the paintings, for example, or gains a new perspective upon them.

CHAPTER FIVE: A GLIMPSE INTO THE LIFE OF HAN AND PIER-LE-POTLOOD

            Near the end of World War II Schreurs made a booklet for his young nephew Han, who narrowly survived a deadly illness in the winter famine of 1944/45. The pictures clearly show that Schreurs’ personal style and characteristic combination of vulnerability, inner strength and humour is already apparent in his earliest work.

2. THE AUTHORS

Drs. Guus van den Hout is an art historian specializing in Christian art and culture. After a long career as a museum director, he is now co-curator Exhibition Holy Places at the MAS Museum,  Antwerp, and co-ordinator of the Art Collections of the Monumental Churches of Antwerp.

Drs. Adrienne Quarles van Ufford is an art historian and art journalist; she works in the Education Department of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

Dr. Chris van Haeften taught philosophy at the Christian Art Academy for several decades. Since 2006, he has been teaching philosophy at the HOVO Academy in Zwolle.

Dr. Philippe Lanthony is an ophthalmologist and researcher at the major ophthalmology hospital, Hôpital des Quinze-Vingts in Paris. For several decades he has researched the influence of visual impairment upon artists, and he is the author of numerous publications on the subject.

Drs. Piet Bakker is an organisation sociologist and methodologist. He has previously worked as the managing director of the Health and Safety Executive, and has been responsible for Safety at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol from 2004 till his retirement in 2013.

Han Keizer worked as a designer, industrial designer and architect in the Dutch cities of The Hague and Rotterdam during the early 1960’s, and has worked throughout Europe. Since relocating to Boston, USA, in 1989, he has worked in developing speech recognition applications for global markets.     

3. CONTEXT

Jaap Schreurs died unexpectedly from a cardiac arrest in 1983, leaving behind a few hundred paintings and over a thousand gouaches, etchings and drawings. Some of his most significant works are very large (up to four or five square metres). An overview of this legacy is available at website www.jaapschreurs.com.

In the early 1990’s, Schreurs’ family consulted a number museum art historians, a prominent art collector, and two experts from the auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie's. These consultants agreed that Schreurs’ work is original work, of high quality (even museum quality in a number of cases), and belongs among the significant artworks of the twentieth century.

These experts also explained that it would be difficult to find a good home for Schreurs’s works, for three reasons: firstly, because his name was unknown in the art world; secondly, because his most important paintings are very large, and often have confrontational themes; and thirdly, because his work does not belong to any contemporary school (it was a conscious decision of Scheurs to develop his own style; while he did not deny that his art was clearly of the twentieth century, he refused to affiliate with any particular movement).

The consultants advised the family to keep the bulk of the oeuvre together, while trying to find a good place for the large paintings of museum quality. The family wanted to donate these works to museums, but discovered that such institutions cannot afford to accept donations unless the painter is already well-known (possessing artworks produces expenses, which can be justified only if the artist is known to a certain degree). Therefore, it was advised that the family should build familiarity with Schreurs’ work first, by organising exhibitions, creating a website and publishing a book.

After seeking this advice, the family decided to invest time, energy and money in developing the profile of Schreurs’ work. This has involved sacrifices, but their decision was motivated by a conviction that Schreurs is a genuinely important painter, whose work merits a significant position in contemporary art. Ultimately, the aim of this project is to find an appropriate home for Schreurs’ artistic legacy.

4. PREVIOUS ACTIVITIES

1) The production of a catalogue and website (www.jaapschreurs.com).

2) The conservation and framing of a large number of paintings.

3) Purchase of a storage area for these paintings, fitted with humidity and temperature control

4) The preparation of an art book

5) The organisation of several exhibitions:

               1983:  posthumous exhibition at the Netherlands broadcasting company VARA                         

               1992:  Gallery Jester, Amsterdam

               1993:  Gallery Jester, Amsterdam

            1994: City Museum Woerden

            1994/5: VU University Amsterdam

            1995: selected for exhibition on contemporary religious art at Museum

                         Catharijneconvent, Utrecht (open anonymous subscription)

            1995: selected for exhibition on contemporary religious art at Museum

                           De Wieger, Deurne (open anonymous subscription)

             1995:  Gallery Jester, Amsterdam

             1996/97: Gallery Jester, Amsterdam

                2000:  Museum Our Dear Lord in the Attic, Amsterdam 

                2010:  Dom Cathedral, Utrecht, during the Lent and Easter period: De Profundis, a  large project based around the theme of suffering, organized by the Dom Cathedral, Museum Catharijneconvent and VU University Amsterdam. This included an exhibition of Schreurs’ paintings on the theme, a concert, a symposium, discussion groups and spiritual dance workshops.

               2010: Metzemaekers Art Gallery, Oirschot

               2011:  CHE University, Ede

               2012: selected for Summer Exhibition 2012 at the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague  (open anonymous subscription).

5. ASSISTANCE

A circle of family and friends have invested a great deal of time, energy and money into these activities. Over the course of time this circle has grown, with dozens of other people who became fascinated by Schreurs’ work helping out. This help includes the transportation of heavy paintings; helping with their framing, conservation and restoration; the scanning and cataloguing of the numerous drawings, etchings and gouaches; the creating of the website; the provision of temporary storage; the writing of texts; and the organisation of exhibitions. In short, an incredible amount of work has been carried out, all of it by people who did it alongside their everyday work and family life.

6. CONTACTS 

drs. Guus van den Hout,                                dr. Agneta Schreurs,