“The world is there to be painted”
— Henk Pander
That was one of the two things that I wrote down during a visit to Henk Pander’s home and studio with Jon Raymond a couple years ago. The other? “Mine is an immigrant story.”
It is with deep sadness that I read news of Henk’s passing this week. Henk was a treasure in our city, our state, and the art world.
Jon and I visited Henk’s unassuming house on Division street while working on a feature for a forthcoming issue of Plazm magazine. I am sharing the unfinished spreads here.
Henk had been in this house for many decades. The craftsman had a remodeled upstairs and back to accommodate his studio, including a heavy-duty crane to lift his large canvases up and out of the building. He’d seen the neighborhood, the city, and the world change around him, like a rock in the stream.
We talked about the politics of our times, how he saw echoes of the past in the rise of fascism. Henk was a bridge in many ways, connecting old and new — bringing the past forward with a contemporary vision informed by his lived experience and steeped in his impeccable formalism.
Hank was deeply impacted by his time as a child in The Netherlands during World War II, witnessing inhumanity of the Nazi’s firsthand. He never shied away from a subject. His painting was the ultimate creative act of preserving memory in a strange land.
He will be missed. His impact and influence will be felt for many years to come.
