Anita naast haar zelfportret (eitempera)
Anita de Harde was born in Groningen on October 31, 1950.
From 1975 she followed the evening course in sculpture and free graphics at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. After a preparatory year, a general year and a year of sculpture, she studied painting for 4 years and graduated with honors in 1983. During
the day she illustrated book covers including: Het Graf van Couperin by Hans Dorrestijn, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, De zwarte tulp by Alexandre Dumas and of the Trigië series: Het slapenmonster by Don Lawrence. See also made the illustrations for a self-help book published by Loeb with an introduction by Aart Gisolf, popular TV doctor in the sixties and seventies. She worked for 15 years at Donald Duck and later in the Marten Toonder studios in a castle in Nederhorst den Berg.
After graduating from the Academy in 1983 she sold many paintings, sculptures and posters and made many portraits on demand. Posters were sold through Image Direct, Leen Bakker and a poster company in Raamsdonksveer. She has also made works of art available for many years to lending companies such
as Business Art Services and lending libraries in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Lelystad and Leeuwarden.
´What I like the most is painting people. People with all their facial expressions, with
their joy and sadness, their focus and their passion, in the midst of nature, rejoicing a
love letter, dusty from hammering into stone, courageous to continue working during
a lockdown, freed from the binding fetters of ignorance. I paint myself and I paint
you with sorrow or great joy. I discover other colours and a different structure. The
freedom of dripping and throwing with paint and after that the joy of returning back
to the reality of the face. Creating that which I could have never imagined to make.
At the Gerrit Rietveld Academy she learned to paint abstract, but her real love always
was portrait painting in the way Johannes Vermeer did. And also Frans Hals who used
abstract elements in his portraits. I like to combine the realistic with the abstract.´
Anita regularly participates in group and solo exhibitions at home and abroad.
Some highlights are:
- 2002-2006 — Solo exhibitions in Barcelona (Grupo Batik Art). This gallery
exhibited her work in 2004 at the Frankfurt Book Fair and an art fair in Marbella,
Spain and a painting is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of the
Americas, Miami, USA. - 2007 — Participated in a biennial international art manifestation: the Florence
Biennale in Italy. - 2008 — Solo exhibition in the building of Omroep Flevoland.
- 2009 — Represented by gallery Artvisie at the event “Kunst & Living” in the Ahoy in Rotterdam.
- 2009 — Group exhibition ‘Florence Biennale Revisited’ organized in The Hague for
24 artists who, like her, had participated in the Florence Biennale in Italy in 2007.
The opening was performed by Angelina Herrera, one of the organizers of the
Florence Biennale. - 2009 — Solo exhibition in the Amstelkerk in Amsterdam.
- 2009 — Exhibition organized together with Marlijn Franken in the Glazen Huis in
the Amstelpark in Amsterdam, from October 28 to November 15, 2009. - 2010 — Monumental sculpture made in 6 weeks during the 11th China Changchun
International Sculpture Symposium. Another bronze sculpture has been included in
the permanent collection of the Automotive Museum of Changchun. - 2011 — Art object (painting with built-in LED lighting) put into operation by
mayor Horselenberg in the college room of the renovated city hall in Lelystad. - 2012 — Unveiling of the monumental (4 m high) sculpture Fourwheeldrive Lady
by the mayor of Lelystad, Mrs. Horselenberg, on which I worked for 6 months. - 2014 — Natuurkunstpark Community, Lelystad
- 2018 — On the occasion of the International Public Art Symposium in
Bhubaneshvar, India, a steel tiger made of recycled metal. - 2019—2nd Dutch Interart Exhibition, Diemen, 2019
- 2021—Permanent exhibition of 5 large sculptures in the Harms Rolde collection in
the Hof van Saksen, Nooitgedacht, Drente. - 2022—Participated in a painting competition for the TV program The new Vermeer.
- 2022—Painting of the Year 2022, (one of the 20 finalists)
- 2023—Art Eindhoven 2023
- 2023—Expo ‘Anita and friends’ (self-organized in collaboration with Booart),
Novotel Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. - 2024—One of the 30 finalist s in TV program competition with her version of The
sunken Master, A woman and her toilet of Gerard ter Borch. - 2024 — Discovery Art Fair in Frankfurt, represented by Galerie AZA Fine Arts, Amsterdam.
- 2026 — Art World Marbella, Spain.
Commissioned Work
- Mural in private swimming pool in Golfpark, 2009
- Mural 36m long, Albert Hein, Almere, 2011
- Mural lighthouse in house, Lelystad
- Legs on toilet doors in restaurant Silver, Lelystad,
- Painting of 4×0.9m with built-in LED light for the municipality of Lelystad,
- Bronze sculpture as prize Best Apprenticeship Company commissioned by the municipality of Lelystad.
- Bronze bride in commission. 2019.
- Bronze jubilee sculpture made for company MILIN. 2019
- Commissioned portraits for restaurant in Hong Kong, 2023
- Painting copy Hans Memling for Studio Paradiso, Edam 2024.
Prizes and Awards
- Was selected to particpate in the Florence Bienale in 2007.
- Award for the bronze statue in the sculpture park in Changchun, China 2010.
- Prize for the bronze statue ‘Upholding the world in joint effort’ in Fuzhou, China, for
which she sent her statue, in 2015. - Invited for the First International Public Art Symposium in Bhubaneswar 2018 where she created a tiger made of recycled waste metal.
- Became a representative and art consultant for the MOA, Miami, 2021.
- She finished among the top 20 finalists of Painting of the Year 2022, with
participation in Art Eindhoven 2023 as a prize.