Ode to Geesje KwakOn posters on so many walls around the world
Geesje Kwam, Photographer George Hendrik Breitner, ca 1894, source photo University Libraries Leiden (inv no PKF GHB017)
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Dear Geesje,
Many people at home and abroad know your face, your name is probably less known. You are the “Girl in white kimono,” Breitner's famous painting. Visitors to the Rijksmuseum look at you in the embroidered kimono you are wearing, the Japanese house robe draped around you in such a way that the floral pattern stands out. This is probably how Breitner laid you out on the divan with the rug in front of it. It is summer 1893. The painter George Breitner spoke to you on the street, where were you walking? In the Govert Flinckstraat where you lived, or in the Tweede Van Swindenstraat where your family later lived? Perhaps in the nearby Dappermarkt, where Breitner more often addressed women on the street to pose for him.
You were born in Zaandam, your father was a boatman, and you were only small when you moved to Amsterdam in 1880. At work, all of you, you, your sisters Anna, Aafje and Niesje. So you and your sisters became some of the many women often skipped over in history: a seamstress, day maid, servant. In some descriptions, you are called a “milliner.
Girl (Geesje Kwak) in white kimono, by George Hendrik Breitner, 1894, Collection Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
Were you on your way to a client, going home, running errands when the painter spoke to you? Breitner was looking for a petite person, for his series of paintings “girl in kimono. You are slim, dreamy, with almond-shaped eyes, so very different the Jordanian women he also approached as models. Did you have to think long and hard, or did you just accept his proposal to pose. Pretty brave, you were only 16; it must have been a good side income in addition to your work as a day girl for a wealthy family. Nice one! You went along to the studio at number 8 Lauriergracht, and had to wear that white kimono. Or a red one, a blue one. And lie in a weird curve on the divan. For hours on end? Or maybe Breitner mostly took pictures of you that he later elaborated into his famous kimono paintings. 'Japonism' was very popular at that time. You in the red kimono became one of the most famous, those canvases can be found in the Stedelijk Museum and the Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
Was it cold in the studio where you had to change clothes? Hopefully not, we know from Breitner's diary that in August 1893 it says, “G. comes at 10 o'clock. Was that kimono comfortable, or was it heavy around your shoulders. Until 1895 you pose regularly. Time and again Breitner portrays you and also your sister Anna, which is why your face and posture are so familiar to us 21st centuryers! He eventually made 13 of them. Did you have any idea that images, posters and downloads of you in the red kimono would become such iconic images? The red of the kimono is almost as famous as the yellow of the sunflowers that Van Gogh would paint almost simultaneously in 1888 and 1889 in southern France. One hangs on posters on so many walls around the world! The Rijksmuseum gift shop is full of your image on diaries, scarves, purses and pencil cases.
The Red Kimono, by George Hendrik Breitner, circa 1893-1894, Collection Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
You left the streets of Amsterdam very soon, in 1895. Together with your older sister Anna, you were on the passenger list of the SS Greek, bound for Cape Town in South Africa. In search of a better life, that's what many people did at the end of the 19th century. Maybe you were along as domestic servants, with the family you worked for.
Bye Geesje, Amsterdam had to miss you, hard working day girl with three sisters. You lived only briefly in Cape Town, at the age of 22 your life is over, one thinks because of TB.
But your image is alive! We can, with some imagination, see you running your errands for the family where you work. And when they are out of town in August, you can pose in those weird roomy kimonos!
Sources and images:
- Rijksmuseum.nl
- Stedelijk.nl
- kunstmuseum.nl
- Jenny Reynaerts, Geesje and Anna. Uitg Rijksmuseum and NAI010, 2024
- Joke de Wolf, Breitner's girls in the Rijks. In: Trouw, 1 March 2016 via jokedewolf.nl
- Podcast: In the Rijksmuseum 30-04-2024 - Janine Abbring in conversation with Jenny Reynaerts
Girl in red kimono (Geesje Kwak), by George Hendrik Breitner, c. 1893, Collection Kunstmuseum Den Haag
Period
1877– 1898
About
Ode by Joke Morshuis to Geesje Kwak.
Many know her face and stature: the girl in the white kimono, or in the red kimono, painted by Breitner 1893-1896. It is one of the most purchased images on posters from museums. Geesje was an anonymous girl in the late 19th century, working for a wealthy family. Just like her sisters. But she is not anonymous; she hangs on walls all over the world. For example, a nameless worker from the streets of Amsterdam has become a familiar face because Breitner once approached her on the street to pose and she said “yes,” even though she was only 16.
Geesje Kwak
Painter's model of G.H. Breitner circa 1894. Geesje Kwak (Zaandam, April 17, 1877 - South Africa, 1899) was a model of the painter and photographer George Breitner.