This May the Edams Museum received a very beautiful portrait of a woman, drawn by Jac J. Koeman (1889-1978), purchased in a thrift store, from archaeologist Sander Gerritsen!

Although Koeman, who was born in Edam in 1889, worked in his hometown between 1920 and 1925 as a watercolorist, painter, draftsman, bookbinder, etcher, lithographer, and drawing teacher, nothing by this artist was present in the Edams Museum – until this donation!

Jac. Koeman, a reclusive man in later life, was famous in his time for his drawings for the famous Verkade Albums. Correspondence between Mr. Gerritsen and family and a former student of the artist reveals that the charcoal drawing is a portrait of Koeman’s second wife, Geesje ‘Gé’ Akke Meertens (1909-1990). This Geesje was a student of Koeman who married her teacher, who was 20 years older than her, in 1930 and later also taught drawing herself. The correspondence shows that Geesje was a rather sour woman, but that the couple was very sophisticated in Bergen during their heyday. “They had lunch on Sundays at a mondain restaurant in Bergen. Aunt Gé would have a live monkey on her shoulder and play the grande dame. She was, let’s just say, ‘very present’, but also just a crazy person.”
The donation is now on display at the Edams Museum in the exhibition ‘From a Live Model’, in the Coopmanshuys, Damplein 8.

Generous donor Mr. Sander Gerritsen next to the portrait of Geesje.