Riek Wesseling - Two (2) E.A. drypoint engravings "beach" and "recreation" pencil signed - Sold

• two (2) dry needle etchings
• Dating: 1976
• Numbered: E(preuve) (d')A(rtiste) / total edition 15 copies
• Signed: in pencil
• In good condition
• Titled: "Beach" and "Recreation"
• placed in a passepartout.

Riek Wesseling
Born in 1914 in Java - Dutch East Indies.
Died in 1995 in Amsterdam.
He studied at the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, studying with Jessurun de Mesquita, among others. He worked exclusively in black and white: lithographs, etchings/engravings, and drawings.
Riek Wesseling's great passion was playing the piano. But things turned out differently. Her mother died when she was a month old, her second mother when she was fifteen and still in high school. She had to repeat the year. Her grandfather, with whom she had moved in, thought that her frequent piano playing was detrimental to her homework. Piano lessons ended. Then she took up drawing, something she had always enjoyed, preferably portraits. Through Professor Roland Holst, she entered the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam. Later, she took lessons once a week in the graphic studio of Jessurun de Mesquita. Then she attended the women's academy in Vienna, until shortly before the war broke out. After living in The Hague, she moved to Amsterdam in 1950. There she received drawing commissions, including from the municipal archives.
In 1960, living and working spaces for visual artists were built on Rapenburgerstraat. She was assigned a house. That meant playing the piano and having drinks. She entered the Contra Prestatie (Contra Performance), the BKR (Bureau for Creative Industries). Initially, she was able to work comfortably, but over the years it became increasingly difficult to meet the weekly requirement, which increased with age. Until 1979, when she entered the WAO (Disability Insurance Act), and she resolved to play only the piano. But drawing remained with her. How strangely lives can unfold: the daughter of an officer in the Dutch East Indies army, who was never a father to her because he could command but could neither speak nor listen. She, who from childhood knew she was in the wrong body and wore the wrong clothes. And ended up in the pink front in Amsterdam. Her friend Ingrid van Delft wrote a book about her in 1984, "Riek Wesseling in Black and White."


Work in the following collections, among others:
City Museum Amsterdam
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
Henriette Polak Museum Zutphen
Jewish Historical Museum Amsterdam
Teylers Museum Haarlem
Museum for Women in the Arts Washington DC
Philips collection Eindhoven