Tot Zover
Sign of Love
Can you preserve love? Artist Clemens Merkelbach van Enkhuizen (1937) drew portraits of his dying partner Gerard Spruyt (1922-2011) for two years. The series of drawings is a poignant documentation of the process of death, an intimate portrait of solidarity and detachment. Above all, it is an ode to love.
Drawing is quiet communication
Gerard had already fallen several times. Clemens visits Gerard every day in nursing home De Poort and regularly draws his portrait. Sometimes he is awake, often in deep sleep. Gerard is happy when he sees Clemens drawing at his bedside. It is quiet communication. The series of portraits show a gradual weakening. With every line Clemens finds what is threatened to be lost: love.
587 months together
Clemens tries to capture the time by keeping accurate track of it, each drawing shows the date, time and number. The 43rd portrait, drawn on February 25, 2011, shows a deviating number in the margin, 587. They were together for 587 months that day. The portrait drawing that Clemens makes three days later says: '7 pm, Gerard passed away, 1 March 2011'.
Grasping the impermanent
In Clement's oeuvre, the urge to hold on to the impermanent is often visible. For example, he drew nineteenth-century churches in Amsterdam that were demolished. Clemens documents the degradation process with a bleeding heart, however, he converts his emotions into professional precision. Clemens also tries to retain this in his portraits of Gerard, which he sometimes refers to as exercises and sometimes as his most fundamental work.
About Clemens Merkelbach van Enkhuizen
In 1963 Clemens Merkelbach van Enkhuizen completed his education at the Amsterdam State Academy of Visual Arts. In the Lexicon by Pieter Scheen he is described as an “excellent portrait painter” and characterized as an impressionist. After the Rijksakademie, many portrait commissions followed and he drew cityscapes. Clemens also took part in various group exhibitions, including in Arti et Amicitiae, the Van Gogh Museum and Museum Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder in Amsterdam, Singer Laren and the Markiezenhof in Bergen op Zoom.