Marie-Jeanne van Hövell tot Westerflier, Hoogwoud, 2022
Museum JAN presents the retrospective exhibition Marie-Jeanne van Hövell tot Westerflier - Painting with a Lens. This exhibition provides an overview of the rich and diverse photographic oeuvre Marie-Jeanne van Hövell tot Westerflier (1953) has created over the past 25 years.
Van Hövell tot Westerflier is a master of photographic stillness and natural light. Her portraits and still lifes are reminiscent of famous Dutch painters such as Johannes Vermeer and Clara Peeters, while her cityscapes invoke memories of the photography of George Hendrik Breitner and Jacob Olie. 'Painting with a Lens' is a technique she masters like no one else. She creates unique photographic images that transform the present into the past. On the occasion of her 70th birthday, her body of work, which occupies a unique position within contemporary Dutch photography, will be shown in its full breadth for the first time.
Marie-Jeanne van Hövell tot Westerflier
When Van Hövell tot Westerflier borrowed an analogue Hasselblad camera in 1998, the just starting photographer was immediately convinced. The size, sharpness and artistry that the camera demands have for the past 25 years inspired her to capture recognisable scenes and people. Van Hövell prefers using natural light only and therefore always waits for the right moment to immortalize her subject. When a painter is not satisfied with any details, it is always possible to change or correct them with a brush. The lens however is relentless: it does not allow any corrections, at least not for Van Hövell for whom photo-shopping is out of the question. She records a reality that only she knows and that she is able to visualise.
Stillness and restraint
The exhibition at Museum JAN shows eight different series of photographs, in which stillness and restraint form the common theme, such as The Quiet City and Contemplation. The ingredients for this latter series are objects from her own interior – flowers, fruits and sometimes a dead insect – resulting in a photo series that betrays admiration for Dutch 17th-century painting. For The Quiet City she also to some extent arranged the architectural ingredients of the buildings by the way she chooses her point of view and makes use of the available light. Her series At the Window evokes associations with the work of the 17th-century painter Johannes Vermeer. In her portrait photography and the series The White Blouse, she manages to capture the soul of the person being portrayed.