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Willem Hussem, Composition, 1962. Oil on linen. 100 x 150 cm.
Exhibition
why the rush, do you know when your work is done
29 Feb 2024 – 19 May 2024
Regular hours
- Thursday
- 00:00 – 00:00
- Friday
- 00:00 – 00:00
- Saturday
- 00:00 – 00:00
- Sunday
- 00:00 – 00:00
- Monday
- 00:00 – 00:00
- Tuesday
- 00:00 – 00:00
- Wednesday
- 00:00 – 00:00
Free admission
Address
- 15 Bermondsey Square
- London
- SE1 3FD
- United Kingdom
Travel Information
- Bus - number 78, 42 (direct) or number 17,21,35,37,40,43,47,48,133,141,343,381 are all five minute walk
- Underground - ten minute walk from London Bridge station
- Rail - ten minute walk from London Bridge station
VITRINE, in collaboration with Dürst Britt & Mayhew (The Hague, NL) are proud to present the first solo exhibition of Willem Hussem’s work in London. The presentation focuses on paintings from the 1960s and 70s and includes a selection of Hussem’s characteristic short poems.
About
Willem Hussem (1900-1974) was a renowned Dutch artist & poet who continually
experimented and produced highly diverse works of art, including painting, drawing
and sculpture. A constant aspiration towards simplicity and purity underlies his
entire oeuvre. It was in Zen Bhuddism that he found the intellectual basis for the
universalistic outlook on the world that would determine his thought and work.
Throughout his life Hussem was in search of a manner of working that tied in with
his philosophical views. In poetry, he found this in short lyrics, while in art he initially
found it in a style that steered a middle path between expressionism and
constructivism, and finally in geometrical abstraction.
This exhibition is the fourth exhibition in VITRINE’s gallery collaboration programme in the Bermondsey, London, space. The show coincides with a presentation of Hussem’s work by Dürst Britt & Mayhew at TEFAF Maastricht 2024.
During his lifetime Willem Hussem had solo exhibitions at Gemeentemuseum in Den
Haag, Museum Het Princessehof in Leeuwarden and Stedelijk Museum in Schiedam
and participated in major group exhibitions in Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in
Rotterdam, Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven and Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. He
also exhibited twice at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, US. In 1960 Willem
Hussem represented The Netherlands at the Venice Biennial.
After Hussem’s death in 1974, the ‘Hussem Committee’, which consisted of influential
artists, art historians and museum directors, kept his legacy alive. Retrospectives
were mounted at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Centraal Museum
in Utrecht, Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede, Museum Dordrecht and Museum
Belvedere in Oranjewoud.
Willem Hussem’s work has recently been shown at PS Project Space in Amsterdam,
Artissima in Turin, Museum Jan Cunen in Oss and Proyecto Paralelo in Mexico City. In
2021 Dürst Britt & Mayhew mounted a retrospective at Pulchri Studio in The Hague
with loans from museums, corporate and private collections.
Willem Hussem’s work is held in many private and public collections, including
Centraal Museum, Utrecht: Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag; Museum Boijmans van
Beuningen, Rotterdam; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the AKZO Nobel Art
Foundation, Amsterdam.
