Meeting Marie’s Murals

Have I told you about Marie Hubrecht? Wasn’t she the Dutch aristocratic lady turned suffragette turned idiosyncratic palaeoartist?

After first finding out about her through the palaeoart exhibition at Teylers Museum, I fell in love with Marie’s work, initially just for its novelty. There’s simply no vintage palaeoart that looks like this. In the time of semi-realists like Knight, Harder and Zallinger, you just don’t get palaeoart that is stylized like this. Plus, how many palaeoartists are eccentric old lesbians? I know two: Ely Kish is the other one. Hubrecht is not part of any trend or movement; she’s a category of one. The outsider dinosaur artist. She shows that, in the early 20th century, there was more diversity in who got to make dinosaur art, and what it could look like, than the usual canon of palaeoart would suggest.

I’ve reviewed Marie’s book Verdwenen Werelden at length. Here’s part one, two and three. We’ve also discussed it on the podcast. But I knew there was another major Hubrecht work I had yet to check out: her murals at the former Girls’ Lyceum of Amsterdam, what is now the Joke Smit College. So imagine my delight when Dicky van der Zalm, Marie Hubrecht’s biographer, invited me to her talk at the Joke Smit College, giving me the opportunity to finally see them. They are of course freely available to see at any time the school’s open, but it’s good to have an official excuse.

Here’s what the school looks like from the front, but Amsterdam being Amsterdam, the main road to the school was blocked off by construction. I had to find my way in through the back door. I walked through a hallway looking for people, and I was suprised to immediately find myself in the main hall, surrounded by the very murals. Blimey! Here they are!

The paintings are so much bigger than I expected. The biggest one, the Jurassic / Cretaceous diptych on the north wall, is a good seven by three metres. The others are mighty impressive as well, with the green, moody Carboniferous painting also drawing in the eye. They are magnificent to behold and endlessly detailed. My photos really don’t do them justice. There is so much to discover and pick apart in these, and indeed we will be doing this soon enough… but first there’s a talk to attend.

As it was Open Monuments day, there were some guided tours going on and the hall was filled with interested people. I briefly got to shake Dicky’s hand before we were all invited to the auditorium for her talk.

I’m not going to rehash the enire talk, but here’s some talking points I found notable.

Two major works of Hubrecht’s survive, both works of palaeoart. One are these Amsterdam murals. The other is the book Verdwenen Werelden, which she worked on after the completion of the murals. All 30 original paintings for Verdwenen Werelden survive, and have been gifted to Naturalis by Hubrecht’s remaining family members.

There are countless signs that Hubrecht painted much more during her life, including some photographic evidence. Her major work before the Amsterdam murals is another set of wall paintings at a school in Oslo, the school her Norwegian partner was the head of. This was a religious work; an elaborate vision of the Garden of Eden, full of animals, an excuse for Marie to stretch her wildlife art muscles. She initially intended for the natural history murals to go to the same school, but her partner objected, possibly on religious grounds.

It is a blessing in disguise that the palaeontological murals went to Amsterdam instead. Although some low quality photos remain, the Garden of Eden murals in Oslo have gone missing, as have nearly all other works by Hubrecht, to Dicky’s great frustration. Dicky intends to finish her biography of Marie Hubrecht in 2026, a hundred years after the opening of the school. It seems unlikely that more works will turn up before the book is done, but you never know… so if you happen to find something signed “MH” in your attic, do let me know.

After the talk, I spent another good hour in the hall admiring the paintings and talking to Dicky (and infodumping on unsuspecting bystanders). The murals were revealed with the opening of the school itself in 1926. Marie apparently painted them pro bono, being passionate about education and natural history. She deeply believed a better knowledge of the world would contribute to the betterment of society… but, with the rest of her family consisting of succesful politicians, scientists and artists, she was also very much concerned with securing a legacy of her own.

That legacy was in danger however, as the murals lost popularity through the years. Apparently they weren’t lit well and students at the school would walk past them without paying them much attention. This changed in 2014, when the school underwent construction. The tableaus weren’t painted on the wall directly, but painted to size on canvas. Unlike, say, Zallinger, Marie didn’t make her murals in situ. She had a shed specially made near her house in Doorn for the specific purpose of painting these. This all meant the paintings could easily be removed and restored. The restoration process took until 2017, and since then the murals have been fully rehabilitated to their former glory. The school even installed museum quality lighting to draw attention to the painting rather than take away from it.

And so, Amsterdam has one more piece of extraordinary, unique and slightly eccentric art on public display. Hidden palaeoart from a forgotten artist, which you’d never know about unless someone told you about it. I’m glad I got to tell you. Next time you find yourself in Amsterdam and you’ve got an hour to spare, see if you can work in a visit to the Joke Smit College.

If Dicky’s concern is to make sure Marie Hubrecht doesn’t get forgotten by the art world, it is my mission to keep her work in the spotlights of the palaeosphere. And, of course, I’m not satisfied unless we’ve taken a long, detailed look at all these paintings.  Yes, this was all just a bit of preamble to the real meaty stuff. So stay tuned for a full Vintage Dinosaur Art analysis of Hubrecht at the Lyceum! In the meanwhile, why not check out Dicky’s website dedicated to the paintings?