WIZZARDES WITH HANDS OF GOLD
Her name is Irene van Vlijmen and most people have never heard of her. This truly great visual artist left us an enormous and unique oeuvre: oil paintings, pen drawings, watercolours, frescoes, mosaics, etchings, lithographs, carpets and jewellery. It is now high time for you to get acquainted with this very special woman, who contributed so much to 20th century art.
HAPPY AND CAREFREE YOUTH
Irene is born on 23 November 1939 in the Limburg town of Weert (The Netherlands). Together with her two sisters she grows up in a harmonious and artistic family. Undoubtedly Irene inherited her creativity from her mother, who was an accomplished photographer. Irene plays the violin well and is a member of the local symphony orchestra. Like most girls, she enjoys spending time with her friends. But she also likes to be alone with her dreamy thoughts. She likes animals very much and as a young girl she already owns her own horse. She attends secondary school in Eindhoven and in the evening she goes to the School for Industrial Design in that same place.
A GREAT TALENT IS BEING FORMED
After secondary school Irene studies art at the Stadsacademie (City Academy) of Maastricht, the very start of her career as an artist. During that time, she also takes painting summer courses in Spanish Segovia, where she gets to know the beautiful Spanish language, which she has already taught herself in part at home. After that, three years of Amsterdam Rijksacademie (State Academy) follow, studying with Professor Röling, to be succeeded by one year at the Antwerp Koninklijk Hoger Instituut voor Schone Kunsten (Royal Academy of Fine Arts). And then her great wish comes true: in 1965 she leaves for Spain.
SPAIN, LAND OF HER DREAMS
Irene has always been in love with Spain. The good climate with lots of sun, a country with a grand culture, the Mediterranean atmosphere and the melodious language, all these things are very charming to her. Spain becomes her new homeland. She studies at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes San Fernando in Madrid. There she specialises in the monumental arts, especially the painting of frescos. After a strict selection process and as the only foreigner, she is allowed to participate in a grand national exhibition in which all the important Spanish painters are represented. And in 1966 she has her first solo exhibition, which is opened by the Dutch Princess Irene. The Spanish press is extremely enthusiastic. In 1967 Irene marries Spanish estate agent and property developer Alfonso Fernández Nieto. They have three sons, one of whom moves to America. The other two boys run Hotel Villa Guadalupe: a charming hotel and restaurant in the hills above Malaga.
A LIFETIME OF WORK
In the following years Irene makes frescos in the Netherlands and in Malaga. She also starts to design jewellery, something she has always wanted to do. She asks the famous Spanish jewellery designer Rodolfo Navarro to implement her designs. As she is curious to find out if the jewellery catches on with the fairly critical Spanish public, she participates in the jewellery fairs of Valencia and Barcelona. It is an enormous success. Today Rodolfo still makes jewellery designed by Irene. In the mid-seventies an American art consultant starts selling her paintings and jewellery in California. For a couple of months she commutes from Malaga to California and in the meantime she undertakes a number of study trips, among other places to Scandinavia. In 1983 the first book about her work appears, written by the Spanish poet Salvador Lopez Becerra. In 1984-1985 she has an exhibition at the Arco art fair in Madrid showing fresco panels, paintings and jewellery. This is an enormous success and Irene makes headlines in all the influential Spanish papers. The number of exhibitions increases rapidly now. These are in Spain but also in New York and at the Modern Museum of Art in Santa Ana and the Nelson Rockefeller Collection in Costa Mesa, the latter two in California. In 1985 another book about Irene is published, in the series Great Spanish Painters. As the only non-Spanish, this is a great honour.
IRENE’S MAGNUM OPUS
It is in 1988, when Irene has an exhibition in Santa Ana, that she meets the wealthy Japanese businessman Yasuhiko Sata. This very special and enthusiastic person is very impressed by Irene’s work and the two of them become friends for life. He tells her that he has bought a beautiful old castle in the Côte d’Or in France, the Château de Chailly. He intends to turn it into a top luxury hotel. But for the north tower he has something else in mind. Irene gets the honourable task to carry out that wonderful intention. She is given carte blanche. And this is how the Dôme du Cosmos arises, the pinnacle of exuberant beauty, found nowhere else in the entire world. This is Irene’s masterpiece, a monument of intense reflection, of silence and wonder, of bliss, of contact with the divine at the highest level. All religions come together here. Playful shapes, little fountains and an incredible abundance of shades in frescos and mosaics make that you feel surrounded by the entirety of the cosmos. This is an experience of supreme beauty. The Dôme du Cosmos is a jewel of fine art and a gift by Sata to future generations but it is not yet open to the public. It is the most beautiful project ever made by Irene. She works on it for more than two years and it contains 300 square metres of frescos and 250,000 tiny glass mosaic tiles.
EL OJUELO
Meanwhile Alfonso builds an enormous manor farm in Castilian style. It is a finca in the hamlet of Chinchilla de Monte Aragon in the province of Albacete. A lonely, quiet place in wild and rugged scenery. The building complex consists of many rooms, a courtyard with stables and outhouses, a tower with a private chapel, a library and a large studio for Irene. El Ojuelo even has its own power station that could supply a sizeable village with electricity. Irene is absolutely happy here. She can work undisturbed at her creations or prepare them. In almost all of the rooms she makes the most beautiful frescos and mosaics and she designs the tables, furniture, fireplaces, fountain and carpets. The Pyrenean-Romanesque private chapel is also designed by Irene. Apart from the many frescos she creates a beautiful Madonna in mosaic: La Virgen de Ojuelo. In 1991 she is asked by Limburg hotel tycoon Camille Oostwegel to adorn the back wall of the private chapel of the Château St. Gerlach with her frescos and mosaics, with the Madonna of St. Gerlach as the main figure. In the same period she beautifies the Karel V Grand Hotel in Utrecht, The Netherlands. This is an age-old property originally owned by the German Order and here too Irene leaves us impressive mosaics, ceiling paintings and frescos and two large hand knotted heraldic tapestries.
IRENE’S STUDIO
It attests to great and compelling craftsmanship that Irene makes all her paints and varnishes herself. Dazzling are the many large glass jars with pigments, including two precious age-old authentic Caput Mortuum pigments from Egypt. There are hundreds of little baskets full of tiny mosaic tiles in all sorts of colours. These glass 'stones' come in two sizes: 1 by 1 centimetre for 24-carat gold and 1 by 2 centimetres for all the other colours. There is only one place where these are still made: a small, very old glassworks in Venice. The glassblower adds a certain pigment to the melted glass and turns this into a flat 'pancake'. After that the two sizes are cut with a glasscutter. Each tiny mosaic tile is unique. In ancient times as many as 1500 colours could be produced. Nowadays this has come down to a mere 120. Irene is the only one in the whole world who still makes mosaics in the traditional way, following age-old methods. Thanks to her enormous stock she could work with 350 colour combinations.
ROAD THAT NEVER ENDS
Then comes the year 2001. Irene and Alfonso are on their way to Madrid to attend a major Picasso exhibition. On the way Irene starts feeling unwell. After many medical examinations and surgeries she is diagnosed with an incurable disease. Six years of severe physical suffering follow. It is Irene’s greatest sorrow that she can never work again. No more creative outbursts, no more going up high scaffolds to paint her frescos, no more climbing up ladders with buckets full of heavy mortar to make her mosaics. She has been asked by Yasuhiko Sata to create a grand peace monument in Nagasaki with her frescos and mosaics. But that is not meant to be. On 1 September 2007 Irene van Vlijmen passes away. The great radiant light of her creative power has faded out. And she begins her long, long journey to immortality.
IRENE STAYS WITH US
All over the world Irene van Vlijmen has left her magnificent creations. A generous wealth of poetic shapes and colours originating from that inexhaustible Mediterranean source, an endless array of fantasies, a constantly changing abstract blend of surrealism and expressionism with which she has enriched art worldwide. This book is an homage to a really great creative power. An homage to a beautiful, kind-hearted woman. To Irene van Vlijmen, wizardess with hands of gold.
Pierre Bogaers - Dutch poet
Her name is Irene van Vlijmen and most people have never heard of her. This truly great visual artist left us an enormous and unique oeuvre: oil paintings, pen drawings, watercolours, frescoes, mosaics, etchings, lithographs, carpets and jewellery. It is now high time for you to get acquainted with this very special woman, who contributed so much to 20th century art.
HAPPY AND CAREFREE YOUTH
Irene is born on 23 November 1939 in the Limburg town of Weert (The Netherlands). Together with her two sisters she grows up in a harmonious and artistic family. Undoubtedly Irene inherited her creativity from her mother, who was an accomplished photographer. Irene plays the violin well and is a member of the local symphony orchestra. Like most girls, she enjoys spending time with her friends. But she also likes to be alone with her dreamy thoughts. She likes animals very much and as a young girl she already owns her own horse. She attends secondary school in Eindhoven and in the evening she goes to the School for Industrial Design in that same place.
A GREAT TALENT IS BEING FORMED
After secondary school Irene studies art at the Stadsacademie (City Academy) of Maastricht, the very start of her career as an artist. During that time, she also takes painting summer courses in Spanish Segovia, where she gets to know the beautiful Spanish language, which she has already taught herself in part at home. After that, three years of Amsterdam Rijksacademie (State Academy) follow, studying with Professor Röling, to be succeeded by one year at the Antwerp Koninklijk Hoger Instituut voor Schone Kunsten (Royal Academy of Fine Arts). And then her great wish comes true: in 1965 she leaves for Spain.
SPAIN, LAND OF HER DREAMS
Irene has always been in love with Spain. The good climate with lots of sun, a country with a grand culture, the Mediterranean atmosphere and the melodious language, all these things are very charming to her. Spain becomes her new homeland. She studies at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes San Fernando in Madrid. There she specialises in the monumental arts, especially the painting of frescos. After a strict selection process and as the only foreigner, she is allowed to participate in a grand national exhibition in which all the important Spanish painters are represented. And in 1966 she has her first solo exhibition, which is opened by the Dutch Princess Irene. The Spanish press is extremely enthusiastic. In 1967 Irene marries Spanish estate agent and property developer Alfonso Fernández Nieto. They have three sons, one of whom moves to America. The other two boys run Hotel Villa Guadalupe: a charming hotel and restaurant in the hills above Malaga.
A LIFETIME OF WORK
In the following years Irene makes frescos in the Netherlands and in Malaga. She also starts to design jewellery, something she has always wanted to do. She asks the famous Spanish jewellery designer Rodolfo Navarro to implement her designs. As she is curious to find out if the jewellery catches on with the fairly critical Spanish public, she participates in the jewellery fairs of Valencia and Barcelona. It is an enormous success. Today Rodolfo still makes jewellery designed by Irene. In the mid-seventies an American art consultant starts selling her paintings and jewellery in California. For a couple of months she commutes from Malaga to California and in the meantime she undertakes a number of study trips, among other places to Scandinavia. In 1983 the first book about her work appears, written by the Spanish poet Salvador Lopez Becerra. In 1984-1985 she has an exhibition at the Arco art fair in Madrid showing fresco panels, paintings and jewellery. This is an enormous success and Irene makes headlines in all the influential Spanish papers. The number of exhibitions increases rapidly now. These are in Spain but also in New York and at the Modern Museum of Art in Santa Ana and the Nelson Rockefeller Collection in Costa Mesa, the latter two in California. In 1985 another book about Irene is published, in the series Great Spanish Painters. As the only non-Spanish, this is a great honour.
IRENE’S MAGNUM OPUS
It is in 1988, when Irene has an exhibition in Santa Ana, that she meets the wealthy Japanese businessman Yasuhiko Sata. This very special and enthusiastic person is very impressed by Irene’s work and the two of them become friends for life. He tells her that he has bought a beautiful old castle in the Côte d’Or in France, the Château de Chailly. He intends to turn it into a top luxury hotel. But for the north tower he has something else in mind. Irene gets the honourable task to carry out that wonderful intention. She is given carte blanche. And this is how the Dôme du Cosmos arises, the pinnacle of exuberant beauty, found nowhere else in the entire world. This is Irene’s masterpiece, a monument of intense reflection, of silence and wonder, of bliss, of contact with the divine at the highest level. All religions come together here. Playful shapes, little fountains and an incredible abundance of shades in frescos and mosaics make that you feel surrounded by the entirety of the cosmos. This is an experience of supreme beauty. The Dôme du Cosmos is a jewel of fine art and a gift by Sata to future generations but it is not yet open to the public. It is the most beautiful project ever made by Irene. She works on it for more than two years and it contains 300 square metres of frescos and 250,000 tiny glass mosaic tiles.
EL OJUELO
Meanwhile Alfonso builds an enormous manor farm in Castilian style. It is a finca in the hamlet of Chinchilla de Monte Aragon in the province of Albacete. A lonely, quiet place in wild and rugged scenery. The building complex consists of many rooms, a courtyard with stables and outhouses, a tower with a private chapel, a library and a large studio for Irene. El Ojuelo even has its own power station that could supply a sizeable village with electricity. Irene is absolutely happy here. She can work undisturbed at her creations or prepare them. In almost all of the rooms she makes the most beautiful frescos and mosaics and she designs the tables, furniture, fireplaces, fountain and carpets. The Pyrenean-Romanesque private chapel is also designed by Irene. Apart from the many frescos she creates a beautiful Madonna in mosaic: La Virgen de Ojuelo. In 1991 she is asked by Limburg hotel tycoon Camille Oostwegel to adorn the back wall of the private chapel of the Château St. Gerlach with her frescos and mosaics, with the Madonna of St. Gerlach as the main figure. In the same period she beautifies the Karel V Grand Hotel in Utrecht, The Netherlands. This is an age-old property originally owned by the German Order and here too Irene leaves us impressive mosaics, ceiling paintings and frescos and two large hand knotted heraldic tapestries.
IRENE’S STUDIO
It attests to great and compelling craftsmanship that Irene makes all her paints and varnishes herself. Dazzling are the many large glass jars with pigments, including two precious age-old authentic Caput Mortuum pigments from Egypt. There are hundreds of little baskets full of tiny mosaic tiles in all sorts of colours. These glass 'stones' come in two sizes: 1 by 1 centimetre for 24-carat gold and 1 by 2 centimetres for all the other colours. There is only one place where these are still made: a small, very old glassworks in Venice. The glassblower adds a certain pigment to the melted glass and turns this into a flat 'pancake'. After that the two sizes are cut with a glasscutter. Each tiny mosaic tile is unique. In ancient times as many as 1500 colours could be produced. Nowadays this has come down to a mere 120. Irene is the only one in the whole world who still makes mosaics in the traditional way, following age-old methods. Thanks to her enormous stock she could work with 350 colour combinations.
ROAD THAT NEVER ENDS
Then comes the year 2001. Irene and Alfonso are on their way to Madrid to attend a major Picasso exhibition. On the way Irene starts feeling unwell. After many medical examinations and surgeries she is diagnosed with an incurable disease. Six years of severe physical suffering follow. It is Irene’s greatest sorrow that she can never work again. No more creative outbursts, no more going up high scaffolds to paint her frescos, no more climbing up ladders with buckets full of heavy mortar to make her mosaics. She has been asked by Yasuhiko Sata to create a grand peace monument in Nagasaki with her frescos and mosaics. But that is not meant to be. On 1 September 2007 Irene van Vlijmen passes away. The great radiant light of her creative power has faded out. And she begins her long, long journey to immortality.
IRENE STAYS WITH US
All over the world Irene van Vlijmen has left her magnificent creations. A generous wealth of poetic shapes and colours originating from that inexhaustible Mediterranean source, an endless array of fantasies, a constantly changing abstract blend of surrealism and expressionism with which she has enriched art worldwide. This book is an homage to a really great creative power. An homage to a beautiful, kind-hearted woman. To Irene van Vlijmen, wizardess with hands of gold.
Pierre Bogaers - Dutch poet
