Tweet04-06-2010 om 14:53 by Sueli Brodin

Pierre Kemp, the colourful man in black

The Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht opened this week a new exhibition featuring  a selection of oil paintings and sketches on paper by Pierre Kemp (1886-1967), a Maastricht born writer and artist mostly known for his poetry work, for which he was awarded major Dutch literary prizes.

During the press presentation of the exhibition last Friday, curator Paula van den Bosch explained at length and with much enthusiasm why she considered the painter Kemp as “a small master”: “His visual oeuvre strikes by its originality for its time and undoubtedly sticks out in the Limburg landscape,” she said.

Unlike his contemporaries, Pierre Kemp was keen on bright and vivid colours and had a playful way of adding storytelling elements in his paintings, in the form of human figures or unusual touches of humour. Rather than a painter, he was seen as an “illustrator”, a qualification he agreed with.







Paintings by Pierre Kemp

The exhibition at the Bonnefanten Museum coincides with the publication of a comprehensive biography of Pierre Kemp by Wiel Kusters, a professor of literature at Maastricht University and a poet himself, who was also present at the press presentation. Wiel Kusters eloquently talked about the multi-faceted and "colourful man in black", as Kemp referred to himself in some of his poems. He was a seemingly inconspicuous figure leading a quiet existence as a salary administrator in a Limburg coalmine, with a rich inner life, a sharp observer and a storyteller, a colourful and at times eccentric artist, a man with many idiosyncracies who could also come across as strange and even cold, a poet, a painter, a music lover, a gifted autodidact who stopped school at the age of 14 but who later taught himself French and German, a native Maastrichtenaar who hardly ever left his region but whose interests took him far beyond regional and national borders.

Kemp felt a genuine attraction for foreign cultures, especially French literature and Stéphane Mallarmé’s symbolist poems, but was also inspired by artistic works from the Far East. I was greatly impressed when I learned that the French title he used for one of his poetry books, “Au Pays du tendre Mosan” had been inspired by the 17^th century engraving “La Carte de Tendre” by Madeleine de Scudéry.

Giants in Maastricht

The city of Maastricht on Saturday afternoon organised a warm welcome ceremony in honour of its  new Giant, Stadsingel (city angel), which now comes to join the city’s main Giant Gigantius. The acting Mayor of Maastricht Jan Mans was asked to become Gigantius’ official Protector and to baptise the new Giant Stadsingel with water from the Meuse river.

In his speech after the merry procedures, Jan Mans joked that Maastricht was a city that cherished its traditions, so much so that “even when it didn’t have one, it simply created one.” He was referring to the fact that the city’s Giant Guild only exists since 1968 but has now become a very popular element of the local folklore.

Every five years, Maastricht’s Giant Guild organises a Giants Parade with Giants coming from many cities in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Spain. This year more than 60 Giants took part in Sunday’s Parade throughout the city centre.



Giants from Catalonia, Spain





Maastricht's new Giant, Stadsingel (City Angel)



Maastricht's Giants Guild





Maastricht Mayor Jan Mans welcomes a Spanish Giants Guild


Maastricht’s own mighty Gigantius is an impressive 6 metre tall steel framed puppet on wheels. The guild master Bastiaan Klomp told me that that Gigantius had been conceived according to precise descriptions in a 16^th century Spanish document of a giant puppet that the people of Maastricht had built at the time to protest against the dual authority of the Prince Bishop of Liège and the Duke of Brabant they were subjected to. “It is supposed to resemble a German warrior and it looks very frightening with its angry face and rolling eyes, doesn’t it? Our Gigantius always attracts a lot of attention when we participate in other parades, because it is a very original giant, beautiful and unusually well proportioned, and the fact that we always accompany him in our handmade costumes inspired by 16^th century fashion is also very well appreciated.”

International May Fair and Expat Guide

While 60 Giants were roaming through the streets of Maastricht on Sunday, many expat families gathered at Fort St Pieter for the annual international May Fair organised by the Lions Club Mondial Maastricht. This year’s theme was “Maastricht down the ages”, with an interesting slide show of the history of the city presented by Jac van den Boogaard, coordinator of the digital biography of Maastricht (Zicht op Maastricht), a guided tour of the ancient fort and a delicious barbecue to end the day.





Guided tour of Fort St Pieter



Maastricht Region Expat Guide

My family and I enjoyed our afternoon, catching up with friends and making new acquaintances. One of the highlights of the fair this year was the presentation of the new and comprehensive Expat Guide (pdf), an initiative of the Maastricht Region Branding Foundation in cooperation with Brainport Development, the city of Maastricht and Maastricht University. As “Expat of the Year”, I was invited by Wim Ortjens, the managing director of the Maastricht Region Branding Foundation, to receive one of the first copies of the publication, and he made me laugh and blush when he introduced me out loud to the large audience as the “Mother of all Expats”!

Also see:

• a video clip of Wiel Kusters reading Nobel Kind, a poem by Pierre Kemp


• a slide show of the Pierre Kemp exhibition at Bonnefanten Museum


• video clips of Maastricht's Giants Guild and two Spanish Giants Guilds walking through the streets of Maastricht on Saturday 29 May: clip 1, clip 2, clip 3


• a slide show of the inauguration of Maastricht's new Giant Stadsingel (City Angel)


• a slide show of the International May Fair

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