Ode to Anneke van der Feer | Imagination

She looks at me, eyes slightly squinted, cigarette in the corner of her mouth, short hair, no makeup, in work clothes. This is how Anneke van der Feer depicted herself, palette at the ready.

When I see that self-portrait in the depot of the Stedelijk Museum in 2015, I immediately become fascinated. This painting should definitely have a place in the exhibition Made in Amsterdam, 100 years in 100 works of art (2016). And even though I know hardly anything about this artist, it is purely the image that convinces me. After brief research, I write a short text for the exhibition and accompanying book. By mistake, I place the portrait in the timeline at 1930. It is only after more thorough research that I discover new facts about her life, her art and about the varying appreciation accorded her. She takes on more color and relief and becomes more fascinating as I delve into her. And I am not the only one doing so.

A monograph on her by André Stufkens will be published in 2023, with the self-portrait on the cover. The generally increased attention to women artists is also leading the Stedelijk Museum to look with different eyes at the self-portrait, which was acquired by Willem Sandberg in 1945 and has hung mostly in the depot ever since. Now it is part of the permanent display, it has been cleaned and the dating of the portrait appears to be 1938. 

Anneke van der Feer is what you might call an activist. She is a member of all kinds of leftist associations, during the war she is part of the artists' resistance and in 1945 she becomes a board member of the BBK, the artists' union. She expresses that same activism in her work, mobilizing her imagination. Whether portraits of neighbors, friends, children, or of factory workers in Moscow, peat cutters in Drenthe, beer brewers in Amsterdam: she expresses her social commitment in the images she creates. Remarkably, she does not otherwise make her views very public, at least they are not found in ego documents with the exception of her letters to Joris Ivens.

Around 1925 they get to know each other. She is 23, has just moved to Amsterdam on Warmoesstraat, takes lessons from painter Harmen Meurs and soon exhibits with De Onafhankelijken. She takes an active part in artist life and joins the communist movement, as does Joris Ivens, her lover, kindred spirit and comrade. He is then 27, lives on the Damrak, is manager of the photography store C.A.P. Ivens & Co on Kalverstraat and is at the beginning of his career as a filmmaker. 

Attracted by the revolutionary developments in Russia, they traveled to Moscow together in the 1930s; Anneke lived and worked there until 1938, by which time Ivens had already left for the United States. Their paths cross several times over the years; they help and support each other. This is evident from the letters Anneke sends to him between 1940 and 1955, which are preserved in the Joris Ivens Archive. She writes about her work, the exhibitions, about common friends. Political issues, however, hardly come up. This becomes understandable when I lay eyes on Van der Feer's BVD file in the National Archives. It is haunting to see how closely her corridors were followed and how her relations with Ivens and other men were decisive in the informants' sleuthing. 

During her lifetime, individuals and museums buy her work, she exhibits regularly, and reviews are generally positive. Nevertheless, she has to struggle to make a living and her income is very variable. In 1927, for example, she paints the portrait of a coalman's child in return for the fuel he delivers to her. Two years later, for the considerable sum of 350 guilders, the Stedelijk Museum bought the View of Central Station, which she painted from her studio on Warmoesstraat. In the crisis years and during the war there is a scarcity of everything, painting materials are scarce, and in a letter to Ivens she asks if he can send her stockings from America. 

Shortly after the Liberation, as a board member of the BBK, she spearheaded the Contraprestatie, a scheme she used until her death in 1956. Paintings and drawings, which she turned in in return for financial support, hang in government buildings to this day. Some pieces from museum collections have inexplicably disappeared. After her death, her works are hardly seen in exhibitions anymore, Anneke van der Feer falls into oblivion.

Now - one hundred years after the start of her career - interest is reviving and her work is being looked at differently. Not merely the art historical significance counts, or the stylistic comparison with the work of - mostly male - contemporaries. Now more attention is being paid to the historical and documentary nature of her oeuvre. That the data on her come largely from the sources surrounding Joris Ivens is a sign of the times and a twist of fate. Fortunately, her paintings, drawings and graphic work are now on display again, and hopefully the missing pieces will also turn up after further research. In this way, the artist and activist Anneke van der Feer will receive the attention she deserves.