Artwork Data
Artwork Location
Address
Jacob Mulderweg, Den Haag
City district
Scheveningen
GPS data
52.108515926858, 4.306296632402 View on map
Artwork Description
Text
The Hague owns a few early works by the later famous sculptor Nic Jonk. On the lawns at Jacob Mulderweg there is a series of three dating from 1956, the year Jonk graduated from the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.
The sculpture of the box-jumping girls and two sculptures of a mother and child are therefore not yet recognisable as the 'typical Jonks' that he later made: these are smoothly polished, almost cloud-like images of intertwined bodies that seem to float above the pedestal.
The coarsely modelled, naturalistic figures from Jonk's early period are related to the work of many colleagues from that time, including Bram Roth (1916-1995) and Charlotte van Pallandt (1898-1997). Yet it also contains some elements that are characteristic of Jonk's later work. Anatomical nuances have been reduced to light indications. They would gradually disappear altogether: that is also what Jonk valued in the work of the nineteenth-century sculptor Maillol: 'he did it with the light and took away all the anatomy'.
In the course of his artistic career, Jonk further improved and simplified the design. The choice of subject, on the other hand, hardly changed. His women and animals were increasingly abstracted into the 'typical Jonks' described above: sculptures, paintings and drawings that were appreciated by a large audience. Jonk was a good businessman and partly because of this he always had a lot of media attention. His work was regularly purchased, both by municipalities and companies as well as by private individuals.
The three statues on Jacob Mulderweg are much less well known and therefore a special possession.