Special objects
Experience the beauty
Keramiekcentrum Tiendschuur has many special objects in its collection. On this page, we highlight a few objects each time. We apply various criteria: special beauty, innovative technique, surprising design or an intriguing background.
We invite you to uninhibitedly experience their beauty.
Vase Jacques Bongaerts
This vase is a showpiece of Tegelen's ceramic heritage. The vase was made in 1943 by Jac. Bongaarts. Jac. was born in Tegelen in 1920. At the age of 15, he joined the modelling club Tekavok (Tegelen ceramics and folk art) led by potter-ceramist Joep Felder and painter Jean Flos. This group as a whole was hired in 1936 to work at the art ceramics studio Russel-Tiglia. Director George Goossens asks Jac. to take charge of this studio. During this period, the vase comes into being.
Later, this vase became the property of George Goossens, former director of Russel Tiglia. After George Goossens' death in 1978, the vase was inherited by George Goossens junior (George Goossens' son). In 2012, the vase was donated by George to Ceramics Center the Ten Barn. George thinks it is important that the art from that time is accessible to everyone and that the vase is shown to its best advantage there.
The vase is made of red-firing earthenware clay. For the decoration, Jac. uses various techniques. Most striking is the inlay with three colours of clay, an old traditional technique. Small patterns of black, yellow or white clay are stuck on the red-firing clay before the vase goes into the kiln for the first time.
The images are inspired by stories from the life of Jesus, as recorded in the New Testament. On the top floor, we see the four evangelists to whom the gospel texts are attributed. The first and second floors vividly show scenes from the life of Jesus.
Joan Carillo vase
This unusual blue-red vase with two narrow necks is by Joan Carillo. Joan Carrillo - born in Campillos (Malaga) in 1948 - attends the School of Arts and Crafts in Olot, Catalonia, from 1963 to 1967. In 1968, he works in the Serra brothers' workshop in Barcelona. He then opens his own workshop in Riudaura near Olot (1970). He is a member of the renowned Academia International Ceramic (AIC) in Geneva (Switzerland) and co-founder of the potters' cooperative 'Coure'. In 2008, he participated in the exhibition Gold Fever at the then Pottery Museum De Tiendschuur (Tegelen).
Joan Carillo Romero works using the same technique as Jordi Serra. This technique goes back to the Iraqi and Persian ceramic tradition of the 9th century. By applying extremely thin layers of metal oxides, he creates ceramics with a beautiful metallic sheen in three firing processes.
The museum acquired this object in 2016 from the donation of Pieter Doensen. You can currently find this beautiful object in the museum on the circulation in the main hall.
'Cobalt/white flow' - Fenella Elms
Passing by the circulation, the panel Cobalt/white flow by Fenella Elms immediately catches the eye.
Fenella was a German ceramicist, living and working in England, who came into contact with clay at an early age and was introduced to the work of the legendary Lucy Rie. She studied ceramics at Swindon college. She found her inspiration in natural forms, rhythm and movement.
Here you see a large wall panel with an untold number of tiny elements mounted on a white porcelain base. The tiny porcelain elements are of blue coloured porcelain and are mounted by hand on the white panel.
Fenella herself says: ‘The repeated assembly of many components allows a rhythm to emerge, immersing me in the creative process. The finished work is a mixture of familiar and strange. I love that contrast and have learned to tolerate disappointment. The joy of making is mainly in the pursuit of an idea, not so much in the result.’
But the result is stunning, indeed mesmerising; it is as if we are looking at a swirling mountain stream, or if you like, a cornfield in which the wind has free rein.
Fenella died far too young of cancer in December 2022. Fortunately, we still have her work, in which her fascination with the world still shines through with vigour and vibrancy.
Mysterious figures - Etie van Rees
In the 2nd floor room, you will find art from the donation of Pieter Doensen, born in Venlo. He is a collector, including ceramic art from 1945 to 1990.
As his late wife was born in Indonesia, he was looking for ceramics with a relationship to Indonesia. This led him to the ceramicist Etie van Rees, also born in Indonesia and living in the Netherlands. Her art really appealed to him.
Etie was a painter and came into contact with clay by chance. She had a friend who was seriously ill. She took a loaf of clay for her: ‘then you have something to do’. But a short time later, her friend died. When Etie returned to the house, there lay the clay unbroken.
She took it home and spontaneously started working with the clay herself. She painted her figure with oil paint, hung it on an iron wire in the pot-bellied stove and ... it worked! She was very enthusiastic.
At 62, she had her debut exhibition in Museum Boijmans van Beuningen with her mysterious figurines: animals with human heads, fish, insects, embellished here and there with feathers. To her own surprise, it was a great success. Etie is considered the most spiritual and open-minded ceramicist in the Netherlands in the 1950s and 1960s.
She fired her work increasingly in the electric kiln but also still regularly in her pot-bellied stove. There, the flames played around her sculptures, influencing the glazes.
Etie van Rees only started working with clay by accident around age 60 and is completely self-taught. Her work is very accessible and has a clear connection to Indonesian mythology and religion.
In short: ‘You are never too old to start something new.’
Lies Cosijn
Objects by the hand of Lies Cosijn are also part of Pieter Doensen's donation.
Lies Cosijn was born in Indonesia and came to the Netherlands after the Second World War. During the war, she and her mother spent some time in a Japanese camp. Later, she was unable to talk about the experiences of that time, but expressed them all the more in her visual work. This ranks Lies Cosijn as an important ceramist in the 2nd half of the 20th century.
She builds up her work by hand, decorates it by engraving and colouring it with engobes. She then fires her work in an electric kiln. Two of her creations can be seen here in the showcase: a pot with a lid and a large bowl.
The pot with lid is decorated on the front and back with oppressive drawings. The front shows a naked woman with a man in the background. The man's gaze does not reassure us. Forced sex? On the back, a man with a gun, a man with his hands out, what does he want? A mother pulling her child along, wind through the trees, storms in this woman's life. We don't escape Lies Cosijn's traumatic experiences in that Jap camp period.
The bowl exudes a very different feeling. Again we see a naked woman, but now accompanied by poetic words:
Between skin and shirt
What are you
Between skin and shirt the warmth
Between wind and moon
Come into my arms’
What is she looking for? Security? Her lover? Her child?
Lies Cosijn's work is unique. She does not just make pretty things, her artworks allow us to get in touch with what she keeps deep in her soul.
Baboes - Nicolas Dings
At a first glance at this artwork, you are not immediately charmed by its beauty, but intrigued. And that is exactly what artist Nicolas Dings tries to achieve. Hesitant as he is about precise interpretation, his main aim is to evoke wonder.
You may know Tegelen-born Dings from the Spinoza monument in Amsterdam. But let's zoom in on the two sculptures entitled ‘Baboes’.
Baboes are Indian nannies. We know the word from literature and films about the Dutch East Indies. The baboe took over the mother's role in parenting; a sweet, caring woman who taught children to love Indonesian culture. Baboes, however, often had a loyalty conflict: they were Indonesian but also became attached to the Dutch family with whom they served. For Indonesians now, the word has a negative connotation and it feels insulting to be addressed that way.
But we too experience discomfort when confronted with our history. For a long time we were proud of our VOC mentality, now it also fills us with deep shame. With his Baboes, Dings tries to give language to these conflicting thoughts and feelings about our colonial past.
On the interface of beautiful and ugly, good and evil, Dings incorporates pottery, oxides and glazes with different transfers in this artwork. We see a lot of blue that could be a reference to Delft blue, we see VOC stamps and images of mostly Indonesian people and of butterflies. Perhaps he saw the butterflies in his childhood at the Mission Museum. In any case, like the animal heads and the anomalous proportions, they reinforce the sense of alienation and elusiveness at this piece of our history.
