The passing of Julie de Graag

The Latin expression ‘memento mori’, which means ‘remember you must die’, is a perennial theme in art. Julie de Graag literally made memento mori the subject of a print of the same name which she produced in 1916. Her reason for making such a print at that particular moment is clear. De Graag’s health problems regularly prompted bouts of depression, but it was the horrors of the First World War (1914-1918) that caused her mental state to deteriorate further. She was unable to cope with the suffering and stress. In her final years, De Graag simplified her prints and chose to depict more tranquil subjects. She relied increasingly on the support of her mother, who at that point was living at 26 Snelliusstraat in The Hague.* De Graag’s doubts about her abilities grew. These thoughts eventually became overwhelming, and she took her own life on 2 February 1924, at the age of 46.** Julie de Graag was buried in the family crypt at the Nieuw Eykenduynen cemetery in The Hague, a final resting place she shares with her stepgrandmother, father, mother and an aunt after whom she was named. The grave still exists to this day.

At the point when De Graag decided to end her life, M.C. Escher had the opportunity to show his work in the Netherlands for the first time, at De Zonnebloem, a commercial art gallery in The Hague, where De Graag’s work had also been shown and sold. The same issue of monthly illustrated magazine Elsevier’s Geïllustreerd Maandschrift in which her good friend Bertha van Hasselt placed an announcement of the death of Julie de Graag contained a notice of Escher’s forthcoming exhibition. ‘His work is that of a young, fresh spirit who is not to be intimidated and will calmly go his own way. […] Though this work by Escher is not yet profound, one must realise that this is the work of youth and we must conclude that it shows every promise of great beauty in the future.’*** As one life came to a tragic end, another was just beginning.

After Julie de Graag’s death in 1924, there were reactions from the various artistic circles in which she was active, and the local newspapers also wrote about the loss of a talented and still relatively young artist. ‘A true artist with a small yet insistent voice has passed away’, wrote the national daily NRC newspaper on 28 March 1924. That voice remained quite small after her death. Her work still sold, however, including at Kunsthandel G.J. Nieuwenhuizen Segaar in Leiden in 1930. The art monthly Maandblad voor Beeldende Kunsten carried an extensive account of her life and work in an article in 1927. The image of De Graag as a modest person persisted, as evidenced by an article in Het Vrije Volk (15 June 1948): ‘A modest, unassuming woman. Yet her work bears witness to a pure sense of beauty. A beauty that we can all understand.’

In the decades that followed, De Graag’s name featured mainly in publications about female artists, including Bloemen uit de kelder: Negen kunstenaressen rond de eeuwwisseling (1989). Several museums in the Netherlands, including Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Rijksmuseum, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and Kröller-Müller Museum collected her prints and drawings. De Graag’s name lives on in her art, though very few exhibitions of her work have ever taken place. With very few other sources of information about her life, it is her work that bears testimony to her life. 2024 is the centenary of the death of Julie de Graag, prompting Escher in The Palace to present her rich oeuvre alongside that of Escher in an exhibition.

Sources
* J.P. Hinrichs, Bremmerianen. Julie de Graag en haar kring: tien kunstenaressen in Den Haag en Laren, Leiden 2024, p. 80
** The Hague Municipal Archives, 0335-01.1531 Overlijdensakten Den Haag, inventory number 1531, doc.no. 457
*** B. van Hasselt, ‘Julie de Graag, overleden in februari 1924’, Elsevier’s Geillustreerd Maandschrift 34 (1924), pp. 294-296; J.D. Plantenga, ‘Glaswerk van de Bazel en houtsneden en teekeningen van M.C. Escher in de Zonnebloem, Den Haag’, Elsevier’s Geillustreerd Maandschrift 34 (1924), p. 439

All prints shown are part of the collection of Kunstmuseum Den Haag. The print entitled Memento Mori is a long-term loan from the Wibbina Foundation.