A special call from Heritage Association Heemschut: who knows a nice place for a monumental, Haarlem stained glass artwork? The unique windows from the 50s of the last century are ‘not to’ obtain, provided that the work gets a suitable and lasting location.
Not every Haarlemmer will know the artwork of glazier Karla Wenckebach. Yet many fellow townspeople walked past it, at the time that the hospital of the Mariastinicht in Haarlem existed. The stained glass was designed for an outbuilding that rose in the 1950s next to the monumental main building from 1899.
Stored
In 2004 the hospital closed and the outbuilding was dismantled. Thanks to the use of Heemschut, the stained glass windows were retained. “They are safely stored in a coffin in a depot,” says Norman Vervat on behalf of the Heritage Association. “Together with Stadsherstel Amsterdam, we searched for a suitable place to relocate them, but we did not find it.”
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Hence the call to the public, hoping to find a nice location for the windows. Vervat: “We make the artwork ‘not’ available. In exchange, we ask for a suitable, permanent destination. We think of an apartment complex, an neighborhood center or a church. Preferably the work for as many people as possible can be seen.”
No easy task
Placing the stained glass is no easy task, says Vervat. “We can provide the new owner with this. And we also like to refer to funds that can make financial contributions.” For the Heritage Association it is not a condition that the work serves as a window. “You can also place the stained glass for an existing window. Whether you put lighting behind it.”
The work dates from the time of reconstruction, the post-war years in which an unprecedented construction production started. In 1952 the government stipulated that one and a half percent of the total building sum of schools, hospitals and government buildings had to be spent on art. This is to bring the people into contact with art in daily life.
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“It was mainly male artists who benefited from it,” says Vervat. “In that respect, it is already unique that Karla Wenckebach, a woman, received this assignment in Haarlem.”
Karla Wenckebach was born in Schoorl in 1923. Her parents were also successful artists. In the early 1950s, she was commissioned for the new construction of the Roman Catholic hospital of the Mariastinicht in Haarlem-Zuid.
She made three windows, consisting of 2 × 2 and 1 × 3 panels. Each panel measures 83.5 x 108.5 centimeters. Vervat: “With stained glass, many people think of the straightforward designs from the 1930s. This work is striking, because of the lively appearance that is precisely reminiscent of nature.”