Julie de Graag

2024 marks the centenary of the death of Julie de Graag. This talented contemporary of M.C. Escher managed in her woodcuts to capture the essence of plants, animals and people with just a few details. The two artists shared a great love of nature, closely observing the world around them, and depicting it in their prints, each in their own unique way. In the winter of 2024-2025, Escher in The Palace is presenting De Graag’s rich body of work in an exhibition side by side with that of M.C. Escher.

Julie de Graag used her life drawing talent to capture what she saw before her in crisp woodcuts. Her stylised work gave ordinary subjects like animals, landscapes, flowers and plants a certain grandeur. Julie de Graag’s style was already well developed when Escher embarked on his career. In 1919 he was a mere beginner, starting his studies at the School of Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem. He was trained in the same visual tradition in which De Graag worked, Art Nouveau, which was all about the stylisation of the subject. But although this is reflected in several of his early works, Escher soon went his own way.

While Escher became a world-famous master printmaker, De Graag is now appreciated mainly by aficionados. There are only scant sources on De Graag, though it is possible to gain an impression of her family and her life on the basis of archival documents. She was born in Gorinchem, Zuid-Holland province, on 18 July 1877 and was christened Anna Julia de Graag, though she was known as Julie. Her mother, Karolina Stephana de Graag-Couwenberg, was from a family of artists, which explains Julie de Graag’s talent for drawing. Karolina married Johannes de Graag on 16 October 1872.* They had six children: two sons and four daughters. Julie was their fourth child. The family moved to The Hague when she was a child, in connection with her father’s work as a registrar. There, from the age of twelve, she attended lessons at the Academy of Art (now KABK).** Having learned several techniques such as modelling and life drawing, she decided to specialise in printmaking.

Delicate health and resilience

Neither Escher nor De Graag enjoyed a carefree childhood. From a young age, they both faced health problems and were frequently absent from school. Escher was often ill as a child, and spent extended periods in convalescent homes from the age of seven. De Graag had a sheltered childhood, and even as an adult continued to need a lot of support, mainly from her mother. For both of them, physical frailty made them somewhat isolated. Undeterred by this, however, they both unhesitatingly committed themselves to the life of an artist.

After trying out several things, Escher chose to train as an artist at the School of Architecture and Decorative Arts. The man who taught him printmaking techniques, Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita, recognised his talent and encouraged the young Escher. It was during this period that the foundations of his later artistic career were laid. During his training he had an opportunity to study and sketch animals at Artis zoo in Amsterdam. Escher loved observing animals for long periods of time. He was particularly interested in birds, reptiles and fish, which he captured with a keen eye for detail. These animals later appeared in his work, including Paradise (1921). Like Escher, Julie de Graag was frequently absent from school as a child, but this did not prevent her from learning, and studying subjects that interested her. She taught herself zoology and botany, for example, which led her to produce prints of flora and fauna that were full of character. Take Two Owls (1921), for instance, in which the bird in front looks watchful and defensive as it protects the anxious-looking owl behind. Although she had a particular talent for black-and-white images, she also often elected to use vibrant colours, and tended to work in relatively small formats. Her animal prints are often unpretentious, yet full of character. This can for example be seen in the satisfied face of her Sitting Cat (1917), which measures only 5.4 by 3.9 cm.

Artistic circles

In 1901 Julie de Graag met art teacher and expert Henk Bremmer when she took one of his courses. She admired him, and sought his approval. She also wrote to him asking if he would like to have a portrait she had made of him.*** Bremmer was a fan of De Graag’s work, and he brought her to the attention of collectors, as a result of which her work ended up in the collection of the Kröller-Müller Museum and other institutions. Bremmer was an important figure for many Dutch artists in the early 20th century. The ‘Bremmerians’, as this group was known, were all inspired by him. Julie de Graag is also regarded as a member of this circle.

Some of the other women in the group became lifelong friends of De Graag’s, including Anna Egter van Wissekerke, who allowed her friend to use her studio in villa De Lingenskamp in Laren, Noord-Holland. Like famous contemporaries including Piet Mondrian and Bart van der Leck, De Graag was attracted to the natural setting of this artists’ community, and she moved there in 1904.**** The fact that De Graag was a hub of the artistic community there is apparent from a letter that Egter van Wissekerke wrote to Bremmer: ‘The Mendeses are asking whether you are ever going to come again. I also heard v.d. Leck saying to Miss De Graag that they never hear from you. You see that the best part of half of Laren is asking after you.’***** The Mendeses referred to here are Anna and Joseph Mendes da Costa, sister and brother-in-law of Escher’s teacher Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita. It is thus likely that De Graag and Escher had heard of each other. They moved in the same artistic circles, though it is not clear whether they ever actually met or knew one another. What is certain, however, is that they were both fascinated by the medium of printmaking.

Meticulous observation

From the moment De Graag moved to Laren, she largely made woodcuts, managing to capture the natural beauty of the world in the wood. Hardly any of her early work has survived, however, having been destroyed in a devastating fire on New Year’s Day 1908. Her studio was lost completely. The fire also destroyed all of her woodcut materials, so she was forced to switch to painting for a while. But her love of printmaking persisted, and De Graag returned to it, encouraged by those around her. In her work, she focused on the things she was appreciated for: images of animals and the natural world, as in the distinctive Dog’s Head (1920), in which she beautifully depicts a dog’s devoted look. This may have been her own dog, which barely survived the fire.

The work of these two artists reflects their appreciation of the beauty of nature. The subject continued to attract Escher even after he left for Italy in the 1920s following graduation. He cherished both the mountains of Italy and trips to the seaside. Unlike Escher, De Graag did not travel much, drawing inspiration mainly from her immediate surroundings in the village where she lived. She would also create small biological collections in her studio. Interestingly, their love of small things meant the two artists were attracted to similar creatures. Good examples of this are their images of a nautilus and a cockle. These are not shells – as the titles they were later given suggest – but animals that have shells as part of their anatomy. To these small creatures, the shell is like a permanent home which they cannot exchange for another. When it came to shells, Julie de Graag had an expert in the family: her sister Maria, who had travelled along the Pacific coast of South America collecting shells. This nautilus shell comes from tropical waters, so it could well have been a gift from her sister.******

A focus on ordinary subjects is quite evident in the early work of M.C. Escher and the work of Julie de Graag. They saw the natural beauty of the world around them, and produced powerful prints on the basis of this shared fascination. The exhibition explores themes like nature, portraits and animals, and also the techniques they chose. Featuring prints and drawings from the collection of Kunstmuseum Den Haag, the exhibition thus sheds new light on these geniuses of printmaking.