Henk Pander Memory and Modern Life
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Henk Pander Memory and Modern Life Roger Hull Hallie Ford Museum of Art Willamette University Salem, Oregon Distributed by University of Washington Press Seattle and London 3 This book was published in conjunction with an exhibition Photographer credits arranged by the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon, entitled Henk Pander: Memory Bridgeman Art Library, Figures 7, 29, 48; David Brown, and Modern Life. The dates for the exhibition were January Figures 83–84; Eric Edwards, Figure 47; Paul Foster, 29-March 27, 2011. Figure 67; Foto Engel, Haarlem, Figure 1; Aaron Johanson, Figures 44, 88, 91–92; Marne Lucas, p. 6; Marcia Lynch, Figure 14; Frank Miller, Figure 61; Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Figure 69; NessPace Designed by Phil Kovacevich Studio, Portland, front cover, frontispiece, Figures 5, 10, 12, 24, 49, 50–51, 57–58, 60, 66, 68, 70–74, 79–80, 89–90, Editorial review by Sigrid Asmus 93–97, 101–107, page 121; Dana E. Olsen (Oregonian), Figure 56; Delores Pander, Figures 46, 86; Hendrica Printed and bound in Canada Pander, Figure 2; Henk Pander, Figures 3–4, 11, 13, 16–17, 19–23, 25, 27–28, 32–34, 36–38, 40–41, 45, 59, 62–63, 65, 75–78, 81–82, 85, 87, 99–100, page 126; Yasha Front cover, and Figure 97 (p. 102): Henk Pander, The Pander, Figures 18, 26; Mary Randlett, Figures 39, 42; Burning of the New Carissa (2000); oil on linen, 63 x 81 Renée Smithuis, Figure 8; Minor White (printed by Al inches. Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University, Monner), Figure 43; Sjef Wildschut, Figures 52–54, 64, Salem, Oregon, Maribeth Collins Art Acquisition Fund, and back cover. 2010.043. Frontispiece, and Figure 80 (p. 85): Henk Pander, For My Father (For Pappa) (2004); oil on linen, 64 x 54 inches. Book © 2011 by the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Collection of the artist. Willamette University Page 6: Marne Lucas, Henk Pander in his studio, Portland, Oregon (2006). From the artist portrait series Sitting City. Essay © 2011 by Roger Hull Page 121: Henk Pander. Self-portrait. 2002. Oil on linen. 36 x 24 inches. Museum Henriette Polak, Zutphen, The All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may Netherlands. be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, Page 126: Henk Pander. Henk Pander. Quadrant study electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing for Anamorphic Self-portrait. 1997. Ink on paper. 20 x 30 from the publisher. inches. Collection of the artist. Back cover, and Figure 64 (p. 70): Henk Pander, Man Library of Congress Control Number 2010939901 Reading (1984); oil on linen, 81 x 105 inches. Collection of Suzie Stevenson. ISBN 978-1-930957-63-3 softcover ISBN 978-1-930957-64-0 hardcover Distributed by University of Washington Press P.O. Box 50096 Seattle, Washington 98145-5096 4 6 Henk Pander Memory and Modern Life by Roger Hull Introduction works that are profound in their seriousness, dramatic intensity, and expressive power. Henk Pander has lived in Oregon for forty-five Henk Pander is a professional artist who devotes years but to this day describes himself as a “reluctant himself entirely to making and selling artwork. He immigrant” from his native Holland. Arriving in has rarely taught or supported himself in other ways, Portland in 1965, already an academically trained and consequently he has found it necessary to address painter at the age of twenty-seven, he observed broadly varied markets for his work. The result is and documented the crosscurrents of the American an oeuvre of tremendous range. It encompasses the cultural scene of the 1960s with the fascination political and cultural event posters that he created and detachment of a European émigré. In the in his early years in Portland, the sets and costumes decades since, Pander has maintained his cultural he designed for the Storefront Theater and other double vision: he records and interprets American theater groups and dance companies, murals for technology, materialism, topography, and disaster in public and corporate places, and portraits—all works paintings and drawings that radically revise aspects that in various ways and contexts are created on of traditional Dutch painting in order to make hard- commission for particular individuals or entities. He hitting American art. At the same time, drawing upon is also the rare example in this era and region of a childhood memories of Holland and periodic visits traditional academic artist who creates oil paintings, to his home country, he frequently paints specifically watercolor paintings, and drawings that deal directly European scenes and subjects. His painted narratives with the drama and ennui of modern life—with the range from memories of Nazi-occupied Holland, to a cultural history of Oregon, the American West, and conflation of the American West with deep space, to Northern Europe. His paintings and drawings range the burning of the New Carissa off the Oregon coast. from the sheer lyricism of his landscapes and still-life Combining personal and art-historical memory with compositions, to intense dramatic narrative in his the subject matter of modern life, Pander creates memory of war series and his paintings of fire and 13 police personnel responding to crisis, to works that Coming of Age in The address sexuality and death, Eros and Thanatos, with Netherlands almost unbearable frankness and candor. Henk Pander is a major figure in Pacific Hendrik Pieter Pander was born November 21, Northwest art and has been for nearly half a century. 1937, in Haarlem, The Netherlands, the son of Jacob From the moment he first set foot in Oregon, Pander Pander and Hendrica Smedes Pander (see Figures 1, has startled, shocked, outraged, and yet astonished and 2, and 4). Jacob and Hendrica were from Friesland, an pleased his viewers. His work has been deemed too agricultural province in the north of Holland unique bold and controversial (“pornographic,” some have for having its own language. They spoke in Friesian said), too traditional and academic, too calculatedly to one another; Henk grew up speaking both Friesian aimed at the marketplace, too independent, too art- and Dutch. Henk’s father, an illustrator and painter historical, too varied and wide-ranging and thus who used the professional name of Jaap Pander, lacking in focus, too un-modern, too “weird.” Pander provided the model for Henk’s becoming an artist. himself has been known to list some of the “problems” He was the first of the Panders’ ten children and, associated with his work: “I know my work does not as the oldest son, the object of his father’s affections sell well—it’s too large, confrontational, does not and expectations. From the time he was eight or nine follow trends, deals with politics, social critique, satire, irony, the negative aspects of life—everything which turns people off.”1 Pander’s sometimes irascible personality, his immigrant’s defensiveness and even paranoia, can itself raise the temperature of the debates surrounding his work. Yet when one asks who are the major portraitists in the Pacific Northwest these days, Henk Pander is on the list. When one asks who are the artists who paint the major murals and other public art works around here these days, Pander is on the list. And when one asks who paints the most dramatic narrative scenes of modern life in Europe and the United States, Pander is sure to be named. On the other hand, by painting scenes of human beings engaged and ensnared in daily experiences of the mundane and tragic, Pander opens himself to the assertion that he is not a modernist, that he paints and draws in the ways of art history but not the ways of now. Henk Pander offers a case study that is rife with paradox. His work is contradictory, complex, vital, often abrasive, often gorgeous. He is a remarkable Northwest master whose art provides a synthesis of New World and Old World experience in sometimes Figure 1. Henk Pander with his mother, Hendrica Smedes beautiful and sometimes toxic ways. Pander, Haarlem, The Netherlands, ca. 1938. 14 Figure 3. Jaap Pander Henk Pander drawing in the dunes near Haarlem ca. 1960 Charcoal and Conté crayon or colored pencil on paper 10 1/4 x 13 3/4 inches Collection of Henk Pander Figure 2. Henk Pander with his father Jacob (Jaap) Pander and younger sister Gesa, Haarlem, The Netherlands, ca. 1940 years old, he joined his father on drawing expeditions, often to the dunes near Haarlem, establishing a lifelong practice of painting watercolors en plein air (see Figure 3). His father also introduced him to the indoor world of studio painting, and he continues to set up and visualize his studios as zones of Dutch-ness, spaces that keep him linked to a way of painting that extends back to Frans Hals and Rembrandt van Rijn. Jaap Pander had studied at the Minerva Academy in Groningen, where he was singled out as a promising graphic design student. He went to work Figure 4. Henk Pander for a Haarlem graphics company and became known Portrait of the Artist’s Father, Jaap Pander 1962 for his advertising layouts for such companies as the Oil on canvas Holland American Lines. Jaap Pander was also a highly 30 x 26 inches religious man, a stern and serious Calvinist who, Henk Collection of the artist believes, wanted his oldest son to become a minister. published in Cleveland, Ohio. He considered his In addition to his work in advertising, Pander’s father Bible illustrations to be his most significant work, drew the illustrations for three Bibles, including one reflecting his deep religious faith.