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Girl on skippyball'. Mother and child'. Girl with bicycle'. These titles of bronze sculptures he has made for The Hague leave no room for misunderstanding Peter van der Meer's view of life. The sculptures are uncomplicated and show daily life from its best side. The sculptor prefers simple subjects to grand themes. Life is complicated enough already, why should sculpture that is literally on the street not evoke a feeling of recognition? He answers this rhetorical question with a sculpted smile.

In a little park on Spakenburgsestraat, half hidden between the bushes, stands a girl with a bicycle. The bronze sculpture does not immediately catch the eye. It is not large or massive. The shapes and volumes have been reduced to a minimum. All attention is focused on the lines. The bronze sculpture is loosely modelled and resembles a three-dimensional, sketchy drawing. The bicycle wheels are openwork. The girl is spritely. Her narrow body, thin arms and legs and the mischievous Pippi Longstocking ponytails reinforce the drawing-like character and the liveliness of the sculpture.

Van der Meer studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. He then attended the marble school in the Italian town of Carrara. Although he masters carving in marble perfectly, this sculptor manifests himself mainly as a modeller who builds up his human figures smoothly with thin slices of clay or wax, in order to have them cast in bronze afterwards.