Geesje Kwak

Geesje Kwak (born Gezina Kwak; 17 April 1877 – 1899) was a Dutch model for the painter and photographer George Breitner. She became known for the series of seven paintings (and accompanying photo studies) that Breitner made of her in 1893 and 1894 as the girl in red and white kimonos, lying on a sofa and standing in front of a mirror in an oriental interior.^[1][2][3]

Geesje Kwak
Famous photograph of Geesje Kwak by George Hendrik Breitner (1894)
Born	17 April 1877 Zaandam, North Holland, Netherlands
Died	1899 (aged 22) South Africa
Known for	Girl in a White Kimono

Life

Gezina Kwak was born on 17 April 1877, in Zaandam, North-Holland, Netherlands.^[4] Kwak moved to Amsterdam in 1893 at the age of sixteen with her elder sister Anna. Kwak became a seamstress and a hat seller. She and her sister first lived in the Govert Flinckstraat, and then in the Tweede van Swindenstraat in Dapperbuurt. The two sisters came into contact with the painter Breitner when he had just recovered from an eye infection and had moved into a studio at Lauriergracht. Breitner had visited an exhibition of Japanese prints in The Hague in 1892, and subsequently purchased several Japanese kimonos and a few folding screens. He had the two sisters pose in this setting in 1893.^[5]

Kwak soon became his main model. She walked around the studio and Breitner took pictures and sketches of her. This is how the series of paintings of Kwak in kimono was created, of which Girl in a White Kimono and Girl in Red Kimono are the best known.^[6][7][8] However, Kwak did not pose for Breitner for very long. In 1895 she emigrated to South Africa with her younger sister Niesje. There she died of tuberculosis in 1899 aged 22. Kwak was paid for her work, and the relationship between her and Breitner appears to have been strictly businesslike. Breitner kept a meticulous note in a preserved notebook about when and how long she had posed for him, and what amount of money he had given her for it.^[9]

Literature

• Heteren, Marjan van; Jansen, Guido; Leeuw, Ronald de (2000). The poetry of reality : Dutch painters of the nineteenth Century. Amsterdam: Waanders Publishers. ISBN 90-400-9417-9. OCLC 45804799.

Paintings & photographs

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Reference

1. "Meisje in witte kimono – Rijksmuseum Amsterdam – Nationaal Museum voor Kunst en Geschiedenis". 10 February 2007. Archived from the original on 10 February 2007. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
2. Boom, Mattie (1996). The Magical Panorama: The Mesdag Panorama, an Experience in Space and Time. B.V. Panorama Mesdag. ISBN 978-9040098635.
3. "Snapshot: Painters and Photography, Bonnard to Vuillard at The Phillips Collection: DCist". 7 September 2017. Archived from the original on 7 September 2017. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
4. Zaanstad Municipal Archive (Zaandam births 1877, page 36v, deed 142). Her parents were the barge hand Jan Kwak (born Wormer, 17 January 1843) and his wife Willempje Posch (Zaandam, 14 August 1847 – Amsterdam, 14 October 1893).
5. In the Light of Vermeer: Five Centuries of Painting. The Mauritshuis. 1967. ASIN B000H7MSW4.
6. Beenker, Erik (2005). The Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. p. 164. ISBN 9789056623975.
7. "When Artists' Kodaks Were Supercool". The Wall Street Journal. 4 February 2012. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
8. "25 Mar 2012, Page 30". The Los Angeles Times. p. 30. Retrieved 15 May 2021.
9. "5 Apr 2012, Page 4". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 15 May 2021.