Folkert de Jong and Picasso

The foyer of Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar holds two sculptures by artist Folkert de Jong. Contrary to classical materials such as bronze and marble, he works with materials such as styrofoam and PUR foam. Materials that determine De Jong’s typical use of colour: baby blue, the colour of styrofoam, and filthy yellow, the colour of PUR foam.

The 1905 nude La belle Hollandaise by Pablo Picasso inspired the artist to make the sculptures La Belle Hollandaise and Dutch Lady (2011).With them, De Jong points at the representation and role of ‘the Dutch girl in traditional dress’, the traditional cliché that symbolizes the Netherlands abroad.

In 2012, he added the sculpture The Third Hollandaise to the sequence; an anti-image. He used the face (a death mask) of L’inconnu de la Seine, about a young girl who was found in the Seine river in Paris in 1880.