Henri Matthieu (Han) Wezelaar (1901 - 1984) was a Dutch
sculptor. He is seen as an important representative of modernism.
From 1918 to 1922 Han Wezelaar studied at the National
School of Applied Arts by, encouraged by the painter Herman Kruyder. He married
his classmate Margaretha Wilhelmina Visser and the couple went to the French
Collioure, where he was inspired by the Mediterranean light. After about a year
the couple moved to Paris where Han Wezelaar worked in the studio of Ossip
Zadkine.
In 1929 Wezelaar met Aristide Maillol, Charles Despiau and
Adam Fischer. All were focused more on classical sculpture and Wezelaar
abruptly stopped his expressionist style. In 1933, Margaret gave birth to a
daughter, and the following year the family moved back to Amsterdam for
financial reasons. His French style shook the established sculptors awake: they
were still working in the style of the Amsterdam School full of Socialist
symbolism. Wezelaar became the leader of the movement.
He was selected for the world exhibition in Brussels and
Paris, the Venice Biennale in 1936 and '38 and the Golden Gate International
Exposition in San Francisco in 1939. He was, also in 1939, co-organizer of the
first Rodin exhibition in the Netherlands.
When World War II broke out Wezelaar refused to join the
Dutch Chamber of Culture and dried his revenues; his marriage ended in the same
period. Around 1955 abstraction came as a new approach to sculpture. Wezenaar’s
position as an innovator radically changed when he and his colleagues of
classicism were named the "doll makers".
His last public works, ‘Rembrandt
van Rijn’ and ‘Peat Diggers Memorial’, were slated and Wezelaar withdrew from
public life. In 1984 he died of cancer.
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