Location: Museum MORE, Gorssel
With this semi-permanent exhibition, Museum MORE presents a cross-section of its own art collection. The MORE collection is rooted in Dutch realism from the first half of the last century. Museum MORE shows work by Jan Mankes, who died at a young age, and by the so-called neo-realists Raoul Hynckes, Dick Ket, Pyke Koch, Wim Schuhmacher, Charley Toorop and Carel Willink. More than 120 works by more than 40 different artists provide a varied picture of more than a century of modern realism in the Netherlands.
Museum MORE is the largest museum for Modern Realism. The museum displays and collects work by visual artists from the 20th and 21st centuries who take visible reality as their starting point and represent it in a recognizable way. "Realism" comes in many forms. The style can be extremely detailed with an impeccably smooth paint surface, or simplified in shape with a more visible paint stroke.
Charley Toorop | Beemster | Bloeiende boom (1943) | Collectie Museum MORE | © Pictoright 2019
It is striking that age-old genres - such as the still life, portrait or cityscape, or a derivative thereof - keep coming back. With an unusual cut-out, an enigmatic element or a raw edge, modern realism always invites viewers to experience known reality as new.
The collection exhibits work by leading realistic artists from the 1920s and 30s. Their work was in keeping with realistic trends that were spreading everywhere in Europe and North America. Even after the Second World War, when abstract and conceptual art reigned, there was plenty of realistic work, including by Co Westerik, Jan Beutener and Herman Berserik.
There are now new generations of artists who give substance to realism in their own unique way. In this way the story of modern realism is constantly on the move.
