Jeanne Bieruma Oosting

Jeanne Bieruma Oosting – 'Frolicking with the Muses'

April 9 to October 2, 2022 (in four cabinets)

The versatile oeuvre of Jeanne Bieruma Oosting (1898-1994) is the focus of no fewer than five different exhibitions during the Summer of Jeanne, which lasts from April 9 to August 21, 2022. Museum Belvédère not only shows her colorful graphics, but also shows works that are linked to her Frisian youth. However, the focus will be on the groundbreaking graphics from her Parisian period, which is at times morbid, mysterious and melancholy, but also celebrates the nightlife. Born in the wealthy environment of Frisian nobility and patriciate, a career as an artist was not an obvious choice. Jeanne Bieruma Oosting was curtailed by the conventions of her time, class and gender, but nevertheless fought her way free. In her long career she created an extensive body of work that includes oil paintings, watercolors, graphics and works on paper. To create her work, she often had to 'frolic with the muses', as she described it herself.

Although she is now best known for her colorful interiors, still lifes and landscapes in an accessible late-impressionist style, the artist also knows another side, characterized by dark themes and macabre depictions.

Parisian Period

This work arose during her Parisian period (1929-1940), when her development as a person and as an artist accelerated. She gave herself up to the nightlife, became acquainted with (lesbian) love and produced liberal nudes that were hardly shown in the Netherlands at the time because they - certainly for a woman - would be too spicy. This series of Chairs from 1931 will be on display as a whole in the Museum Belvédère presentation. The series is part of a large private donation with graphic works by Jeanne Bieruma Oosting that the museum received. The presentation includes four cabinets.

Summer of Jeanne

A large retrospective exhibition can be seen in Museum Henriette Polak in Zutphen. Museum Maassluis, which owns a great deal of Oostings, presents an exhibition about her many travels. Her graphic work and that of her friends can be seen at Nobilis in Fochteloo. Museum STAAL in Almen, the village where Oosting lived for forty years, sheds light on her position in village life and shows work from private collections. Finally, the Historische Vereniging Beetsterzwaag will organise an outdoor exhibition about Jeanne Oosting in Beetsterzwaag.

In the media

You can read a selection of press clippings here, concerning the exhibition, the Summer of Jeanne and of course Jolande Withuis' biography about Jeanne Bieruma Oosting.
 

Peripheral Program

Further information will follow.

Video about
the exhibition

Interviewer Albert Jensma and cameraman Jan Bensliman made a short film about this exhibition by having a conversation with curator Susan van den Berg. Jolande Withuis, Bieruma Oosting's biographer, can also be seen in the footage of Frolicking with the Muses.