From 1 March to 9 April 2017, Museum Jan van der Togt exhibited work by Jan Snoeck and Oskar Lens, under the name "Two Hague artists".
Jan Snoeck studied at the Royal Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague, where he graduated in 1949. In 1953 he worked for one year in the workshop of Ossip Zadkine in Paris.
Jan Snoeck (1927) initially worked with the materials stone, wood and bronze. He later worked mainly in ceramics. He uses cheerful, primary colors and usually his subjects are his subject. The mostly monumental work of Snoeck can be found both in the Netherlands and abroad. This exhibition shows works that Snoeck has made over the past ten years.
Snoeck recently made collages reminiscent of masks. He himself called them "masks and dreams." “When I am in France in Provence, I walk a lot and find the most wonderful things. That is how my masks came about. ”In addition to these masks, Snoeck exhibited large monumental sculptures reminiscent of Egyptian blue sculptures and a series of glass sculptures that he made with glass blowers in Murano, Italy.
Werk van Snoeck is in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Gemeentemuseum The Hague, Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem and Princessehof Ceramic Museum in Leeuwarden.
Oskar Lens is born Hilversummer and grew up in the Gooi. After his education at the "Nieuwe Lyceum" he completed his law studies in Utrecht. After that he worked as a lawyer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague. Already in that time he thought about painting, first as a hobby, then seriously as a profession.
On the advice of painters such as Jaap Nanninga, Theo Bitter and a few others, Lens (1930) visited the Free Academy in the evenings. At the age of 33, he decided to quit his job to devote himself entirely to painting. Initially he painted abstract with ink and also paint on paper and little color.
As a subject he chose people, mostly women, in bizarre situations such as fashion shows, in museums, cooking in the kitchen, or watching some spectacle. Known for Lens is the portrait of actress Ida Wasserman (1901 - 1977) in her last starring role, a final scene in the piece "All Over" by Edward Albee. Reviewer Peter Berger wrote: “If one takes the beautiful portrait that Lens painted of Mrs. Wasserman, then that is a portrait in every respect. It seems, it is accurate and refined. ” A separate book appeared from both artists for the exhibition.