The summer of 2018 I devoted myself to writing a book. Here is how that came about. I had extensively mapped out the family tree of my family (currently about 10,000 people), which was nice work in which I had built up some experience.
Carel Wirtz, private coll.
That summer there was an exhibition about Art Nouveau in the Netherlands, in the Kunstmuseum in The Hague. My girlfriend and I have been interested fans of Art Nouveau in the Netherlands and (far) beyond for many years, so that was delicious. All the more so because a statue was prominently displayed that had struck me every time I saw it before: a pottery Javanese dancer who usually stood between the well-known standard pottery, so between plates and vases.
To introduce the exhibition, an article was devoted to the sculptor in question and his pottery factory. Not much was known about the sculptor except his birth and some further genealogical data. Ha, I thought, I can find out for the author. It went well, so I immediately worked out his further family and in-laws. It turned out, they were two families full of musicians, visual artists and history.
Many libraries and archives further on, the book is now almost ready. I still have to make a few trips but they have been suspended for a while due to Covid-19. And go looking for a publisher, after which the resulting book can of course look completely different …
The book includes the biographies of
- Bartholomeus Joannes van Hove, award-winning Hague draftsman and painter, first teacher of drawing and painting at the Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague;
- Friedrich Wirtz, the first teacher of voice, violin and piano at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague;
- Carel Wirtz, organist, composer, celebrated concert pianist and piano teacher at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague;
- Carel Wirtz, sculptor in the Netherlands and the United States of America;
- Anton Wirtz, draftsman, painter, art teacher and director of the drawing school in Breda and Roosendaal;
- Bart Wirtz, cellist with various orchestras in the Netherlands, teacher in Nijmegen but then mainly in the United States of America at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and later also conductor there;
- Carl Kindler, oboist, first in the Prussian army, later with the Staff Music Rotterdamse Schutterij and later conductor and oboe teacher at the Rotterdam Music School;
- Frieda Kindler, concert pianist and piano teacher, especially in Great Britain;
- Bernard van Dieren, composer and music critic, especially in Great Britain;
- Willem Wirtz, draftsman and painter in the Netherlands, Germany and the United States of America;
- Hans Kindler, cellist, conductor and founder of the National Symphony Orchestra of the United States of America; and
- Carel Wirtz, interior designer, teacher interior architecture at the Academy for Visual Arts in Rotterdam.
Are you interested? Are you a descendant of any of the above?
Please let me know, for example via the contact form.
