Artwork Data
Title
Kangoeroestoel 2
Artist
Year
1981
Material
brons / steenachtig
Dimensions
h. 155 cm
Artwork Location
Address
Maurice Ravelweg, Den Haag
City district
Loosduinen
GPS data
52.059919072629, 4.2440062741479 View on map
Artwork Description
Text
The artist Peter van der Meer has been called 'a sculptor'. With thick sheets of clay, he formed his female figures and animal figures. His acrobatic moving children are also typical. All these sculptures, which appeal directly to the imagination, are humorous and well struck in their posture and expressiveness.
As a result, Van der Meer, trained at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and at the marble school in Carrara, Italy, had many exhibitions and commissions at an early age. Usually, his sculptures for public spaces were related in style to the small figurative sculptures he exhibited in galleries, such as 'Girl on a Skippy Ball' on Heeswijkplein and 'Girl with a Bicycle' on Spakenburgstraat.
In 1975, the Leids Dagblad reported in an exhibition review on a strikingly large sculpture of a kangaroo in the shape of a chair. The work was described in the newspaper as 'as refined as it is humorous' and 'a kangaroo as a chair that is also comfortable'. Pupils at a primary school in Nieuw Waldeck were still just as enthusiastic in 2006: 'When you sit on the two chairs you can look at each other. You are, as it were, in the kangaroo's pouch', they wrote in a paper about their district. The kangaroo chair was installed when the new housing estate Nieuw Waldeck was completed. Nowadays, they stand on a little hill in the greenery and look out over the surroundings together with the person sitting in it.