Reinder Homan - hand-signed etching/aquatint | 'Heech Hiem - Goutum' | 2009

A magnificent, elongated graphic masterpiece by the well-known Northern realist Reinder Homan (1950).

Homan stands alone in Dutch graphic art when it comes to capturing the poetry and melancholy of the countryside. This panoramic work is a textbook example of his sublime craftsmanship, in which the serene atmosphere of the Northern Dutch landscape is made tangible.

Central to this extremely refined line etching is a row of characteristic, irregularly shaped pollard willows along a waterside. Homan has scratched the gnarled trunks, the bark, and the young shoots into the copper plate with fabulous precision. Immediately behind them, looming between the finely woven branches, is the monumental roof of a traditional Frisian or Groningen head-neck-body farmhouse (or stolp farmhouse).

The panoramic format enhances the expansiveness of the composition, while the delicate hatching in the foreground creates beautiful layering and a subtle interplay of light and shadow. A work that perfectly captures the stillness of the countryside and invites the viewer to discover new details time and again.

Reinder Homan (trained at the Academie Minerva in Groningen and the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht) belongs to the absolute top of contemporary Dutch etchers. His virtuoso prints are included in countless museum, corporate, and private collections, including that of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. In 1990, he received the prestigious Dutch Printmaking Prize.


The whole is in neat condition and is signed, dated, and numbered in pencil by the artist.