Kees Stoop: Leven En Werk.
A Literary Sketch Of An Artists Life.
It has taken me longer than usual to finish Kees Stoop: Leven en Werk, not for lack of interest, but because I was translating it from Dutch to English as I read. This added an unexpected layer to the experience, slowing me down in a meaningful way, making me more attentive to nuance, and prompting me to take notes as I went. The book arrived as a surprise gift from my partner’s parents at the end of last year. I had previously tried (and failed) to find a copy myself, both in Scotland and the wider UK, so when it appeared in the post, it felt all the more special.
Written empathetically by Koen Kleijn, Kees Stoop: Leven en Werk offers more than just a straightforward biography. It reads like a literary sketch of Stoop’s life, interwoven with reflections from those who knew him personally. It carries the same energy you might find in a sketchbook or an artist’s self-portrait: fleeting, intimate, and full of quiet resonance. Some passages feel as though they’ve been lifted from an old photo album, imbued with nostalgia and the suggestion of untold stories behind the lens.
Scattered throughout are images of Stoop’s expansive body of work – drawings, etchings, and paintings – that provide a visual thread to complement the text without overwhelming it. Stoop appeared to create feverishly, completing one piece and moving almost immediately on to the next. Rarely were his works dated or documented, so it’s often difficult to determine which pieces came first. Instead of following chronology, the book groups works by characteristic – small to large, sketch to painting, and so on.
What struck me most was how consciously Stoop avoided narrative in his visual work. In the studio, his guiding principle was “simplification”, but not in a reductive sense. Rather, it was a considered stripping away of anything that might hint at a storyline. His compositions avoid overt focal points. There are no symbolic props, no human figures, and animals are rarely present. Instead, what remains is atmosphere – a mood held in tension.
His landscapes feel like moments suspended in time. They carry a stillness that reminds me of the air just before a thunderstorm – silent, charged, expectant. That atmospheric quality has lingered with me. There is something both haunting and comforting in his work, as if the silence within each piece leaves space for the viewer’s own emotional projection. It draws you in, as if you are among the flowing grasses, the tall stalks of corn, or walking between the trees.
From the 1970s onwards, Stoop also devoted himself to calligraphy, a practice that reminded me of the traditional Chinese brushwork I encountered earlier in this course. He read poetry extensively and could recite many poems by heart. In conversation, he often turned to poetry when his own words fell short. Over time, he began translating these poems into calligraphic works – sometimes simply for himself, sometimes as gifts for his wife Ans, or incorporated into Christmas cards and larger botanical drawings.
Stoop rarely sold his work, and on the few occasions that he did, he often bought the pieces back later. He even went so far as to present this to the tax office, demonstrating how little he earned from painting. It’s clear from Kleijn’s writing that Stoop had little interest in the commercial art world and intentionally distanced himself from the Dutch expressionist movement that emerged around him. Instead, he was compelled to create for its own sake, for the flow of it, like a river that must keep moving. In this self-imposed isolation, he was able to explore a raw reality – the fields, trees, branches, and animals as symbols of truth. As Philip Akkerman wrote, Stoop sought “the signs that revealed to him his own truth and that of the universe”. He didn’t draw to depict reality, but to reveal essence and energy.
Reading Kees Stoop: Leven en Werk in translation added both a sense of distance and of intimacy. Translating the words myself meant I had to engage more deeply with the text, and in doing so, I felt I was inching closer to Stoop’s world, even if only from its quiet edges.
This book, and the slow, considered way I had to read it, reminded me of the value of silence in art – the deliberate holding back, the refusal to explain. There’s a kind of generosity in that. It gives the viewer space to bring something of themselves to the work. And I think that’s what makes Stoop’s art, and this book, so quietly powerful.
References:
Kleijn, K. (2017) Kees Stoop: Leven en Werk. Zutphen: Walburg Pers.
