Dozens of paintings of ships in turbulent waves lie in the attic of the sauna in Zuidwolde. Made by the flamboyant painter Henk Baron, who died ten years ago. An exhibition will soon start to prevent his art from gathering dust.
“Thick layers of paint on it.” Contractor Jan van Egten (75) from Zuidwolde (Dr.) points to the thick blobs as he leafs through the rows of paintings that lie against each other like large fallen dominoes. Next to Van Egten, artist Arie Fonk (74) leafs through a row and pulls one out. “This is a beautiful one. His greatest works are the best.”
For years painter Henk Baron lived in Van Egten’s yard. There the artist lived illegally in a shed, because he had no money for another place. He always lived and chased his dreams, but died penniless at the age of 70. Baron went into the ground at municipal expense. Only a pole with a number can be seen on the grave.
Since his death in 2013, Van Egten has faithfully preserved his paintings. The contractor owns the sauna in Zuidwolde and has placed the approximately one hundred works of art there high and dry in the attic. But he wants to get rid of it. “They don’t get in the way, but that’s not how it works out.”
Together with Fonk, he will therefore sell the canvases at an exhibition. The pair are still looking for a location for this.
The proceeds of the paintings are used to give Baron a full stone on the grave. Another part of the proceeds goes to the animal shelter, where Baron also picked up his own dog years ago.
Flight from parental home
Grocer’s son Henk Baron left when he was 14 the from Emmer-Compascuum because it didn’t get along with his father. He himself called it a flight. “It was murder and manslaughter at one point. My mother already saw the storm coming and made sure I could leave,” Henk Baron once said in an interview with RTV Drenthe, during the culture program Bartissimo in November 2010.
He went to sea for several years as a kitchen helper and cleaned pans in the galley. Because he was rejected for his eyesight, he was not allowed on deck as a sailor. “I have never been a real sailor. But I did enjoy it. A storm, for example, even if I became as sick as a dog.”
Paintings about the sea
He painted from an early age. Initially realistic works, such as the folding bridge and the rag farmer by Emmer-Compascuum. Later he made ships in the sea, following his example, painter William Turner. He took a lot of inspiration from the colors and lines of the sea. His technique became rougher, the paint on his paintings is thick as a thumb.
“With your ship you are sometimes nothing, the sea is too powerful for you,” said Baron in the same interview from 2010.
But there is another reason why Baron painted ships in the raging sea. He lost two comrades off the Scottish coast in a shipwreck around Christmas. That affected him a lot: every year around that time he filled himself with jenever.
Plans failed
His art did not sell Baron. After his years at sea, he tried to earn a living with his own construction and architecture company. Baron was a dreamer. Once he bought a dilapidated coaster , a sixty-metre metal coaster built in 1964 . The painter stripped the boat and put a new cabin on it for tons of steel, so that he could hold exhibitions there with other artists and go out to sea. When he was finished, the insurer rejected the ship because it had rusted too far. The boat could go for the old iron price.
Time and time again, Baron’s plans failed, causing him to fall into ruin. He got into debt and ended up in the warehouse of entrepreneur Jan van Egten in Zuidwolde. There he could often be seen in his red Jaguar, smoking like a heretic. “He largely did not pay his rent, but that does not matter,” says Van Egten.
higgledy-piggledy
As an architect, he only had successes. He sketched separate buildings with many corners, sloping edges and empty space. There is another house he designed on the Melkweg in Klijndijk.
“You recognize it right away,” laughs Van Egten. Baron also designed his contractor’s office on Nijverheidsweg in Zuidwolde. “He also sometimes designed a house for me, but they were too special for people in this area. And some ideas were not watertight. He once designed a building in Hoogeveen that had to be demolished after ten years.”
The contractor had a soft spot for Baron. “He was honest. Many people took advantage of him. When he once parked his little Renault at a garage, he fell ill and ended up in hospital. When I got that car out of there, he had to pay huge sums of money in scaffolding. Those kind of things.”
Sale
It was not until the end of his life that Henk Baron began to sell his canvases himself in dribs and drabs. In the interview with RTV Drenthe , thirteen years ago, he said: ,,You get older and slowly it dawns: where is this? The attic is full. It haunts the back of my mind that at some point a container will arrive and everything will go away.”
A doomsday scenario for every creator. That is why Van Egten and Fonk are looking for an exhibition space to sell his works. Lest Baron’s barges perish in turbulent waves in an attic.