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VISIONARY REVUE PARIS - SPRING 2003

THE HAGUE YEARS

1945 - 1962

After seven years of study at the academy in the Hague,

Johfra acquired a studio on Willemstraat. Shortly
thereafter, in 1946, he met Diana Vandenberg, whom he was
to live and paint with for the next sixteen years. Together,
the two of them broadened their knowledge of classical art
through summer travels in the Mediterranean. And, at the
Lectorium Rosicrucianum in Harlem, they pursued indepth
studies on Hermetc subjects over the course of a decade.
But the paintings that emerged during this period were
neither esoteric nor classical. It was only at the end of his
relationship with Diana that a few Hermetic paintings
appeared. As well, though numerous studies of antiquity SKETCHBOOK PAGE: DRUMMELS
were made in his sketchbooks, particularly during his
travels with her, these classical figures only surfaced
intermittantly in painting. The painting The Dispute (opposite) offers one
Instead, the predominant figure in his works of this example of more human-oriented drummels, while
period became ‘the drummel’. This word describes the the sketchbook drawing above offers human and
bizarre, combinatory figures which abound in one dream animal drummels combined.
landscape after another. These so-called sketchbooks are, in fact,
standard hard-bound books minus the text. With a
clear pencil line, never erasing, Johfra filled page
after page and volume after volume of these books
with drummels - the thousand and one variations
that are possible when combining human or animal
forms.
Some pages are pre-occupied with human
anatomy exclusively - how an ear may be glued to a
hand, a hand to an eye, and and an eye back to the
ear. Others are more interested in human and
animal forms: how wings may sprout from ears, or
serpents from a nose. The variations are endless. All
'DRUMMELS'
emerge spontaneously and alive in figure after figure
(THE DISPUTE -1972)
of amazing human invention.

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