23. Kees Verwey - Still life with flowers, 1969

This watercolour shows a colourful still-life, Kees Verwey's speciality. With oil paints and watercolours, he painted numerous still-lifes of flowers, especially from his studio. This still-life was created by lavish layers and smudges of watercolours next to and over each other, here and there more transparent or even thicker. Everything to create a rich and dramatic effect. It shows that Kees Verwey used his continuous surprise of the tireless strength of daily reality as an inspiration for his work. He was inspired by his own surroundings and studio in Haarlem. His artwork is an exercise in being aware of what is going on around you. His quote “art is reflection” is not only about the intense way of observing, but is also a reference to his own life. Everything he had with him in his life: his family and origin, the rich legacy of the Dutch art tradition, his earlier mentors, not forgetting art from his own time, are all reflected in his work. With work that embraces almost all of the twentieth century, and the appealing dynamics in all his work, Kees Verwey is valued as the greatest Dutch artist of the last century.

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The Musea Zutphen -Stedelijk Museum Zutphen en het Museum Henriette Polak- are located in the 17th-century city palace Hof van Heeckeren. History, cultural history, visual arts and topical matters meet here in a surprising way