Artwork Data

Title

Zeelandschap

Artist

Dora Dolz

Material

Keramiek, l. 250, br 180 en h. 120 cm 

Artwork Location

Address

Architect Berlagelaan, op pleintje ter hoogte van no. 158 , Den Haag

GPS data

52.05707, 4.2557075 View on map

Artwork Description

Text

Where a neighborhood initiative can lead. In 1987 an association of residents of the Architect Berlagelaan approached the City Council with the request to decorate the so-called "Berlage Square" in their new neighborhood with a work of art. In October 1991 Zeeland Landscape by Dora Dolz was installed. It not only gave a colorful accent to the little square; at the same time it was a grateful play object for the children. This is evident from the minutes of the general membership meeting of the Association of Owners De Erker (April 3, 1992).

This Spanish artist came to the Netherlands in 1965 and lived and worked in Rotterdam until her death. She was primarily a painter of still lifes. After 1980, landscapes also invaded her representations. Some three years earlier she made her first "translation" of an object from a painting into ceramics. Monumental, colorful sculptures were the result. Throughout the Netherlands and abroad, her exuberant chairs and benches in particular enjoy great fame.

Most likely around 1990, Dolz was commissioned by the Municipal Commission for Art Assignments to create a work of art on the square. At that time, the seascape was an important motif in her paintings. Several times she made a monumental, three-dimensional version of that motif in ceramics. The Seascape for Berlageplein was executed by the well-known Hague Ceramic Workshop Struktuur 68.

"In Spain I might go into black," Dolz says in an interview in a catalog on the occasion of the Judith Leyster Prize in 1993. "If you look outside here (...) it's so gray. [...] You have to have those fresh colors, otherwise everything disappears into that pea soup." That is not going to happen at Berlageplein. Certainly not after the renovation of the square in 2024 and the restoration of Dolz' Seascape by Marijke Gémessy.

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