Deborah Siepmann visits the Anton Pieck Museum in the Netherlands to learn more about this talented artist.
ANTON PIECK was a Dutch painter, graphic artist, teacher and book illustrator whose career spanned much of the twentieth century.
But one could assume that he had lived many decades earlier, as he loved portraying nostalgic worlds of the past.
His Dickensian scenes are filled with crooked houses and town squares bustling with carriages, barrel organs and puppet shows.
Having always felt he’d been born into the wrong century, he never owned a car, television or radio.
He produced all of his prints by hand using an old-fashioned printing press.
The artist was a modest and private man, so he had mixed feelings about a museum being created in his honour.
The Anton Pieck Museum was opened in 1984 in Hattem, following the success of a comprehensive exposition of his work.
Over the years, Anton’s pictures, Christmas cards and calendars had won the hearts of the public.
Although some art critics had dismissed his work as overly sentimental, the sophisticated Singer Museum in Laren was proud to mount the exposition, to which over 60,000 enthusiasts flocked.
I visited Hattem on a frosty day near to Christmas.
As I walked beside the canal and through the medieval gates in the early morning, I could see the sails of the town windmill towering above the museum.
Cyclists glided by wrapped in hats and scarves, and the bakeries and cafés, gift and chocolate shops began to open their doors.
Christmas carols chimed from the church tower and the narrow cobbled streets and town square looked straight out of one of Anton’s paintings.
I was delighted to be shown round the three floors of Anton’s drawings, paintings, etchings and memorabilia by distinguished art historian Judith Bartel-van Beckhoven.
Her job as curator is very close to her heart, as she grew up in Overveen, the town where Anton lived in the Netherlands.
“I feel privileged to work with Anton Pieck’s creations on a daily basis,” she said.
“I can still remember meeting him while on a walk. With his long coat and hat he looked like a gentleman and I didn’t dare to talk to him.
“But he was very courteous in his greeting.
“I knew perfectly well that he was the artist who had created all those beautiful pictures on the birthday calendar that hung in our home.
“Now, forty years later, my job is to
