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VISIONARY REVUE PARIS - SPRING 2003

THE HAGUE PERIOD

1945 - 1962

In 1945, Johfra acquired a studio on

Willemstraat in the Hague. A different genre of
works emerged at this time: classical nudes on
mythological subjects - Andromeda or Queen of the
Night. Anatomically perfect, an intense eroticism
also emanates from these figures. Though Johfra
kept a diary from his early youth, in 1945 he began
writing these in code - a habit he would keep up
intermittantly for the next five years.
One year later, in 1946, he met the painter
THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS Angèle Thérèse Blomjous, whom he knew initially
IN THE HAGUE
as Diavola. He considered her to be dangerous. In
his Journal, he confided “when I saw her, I was
seized by an inexplicable panic and an urge to
In a Nazi propaganda pamphlet denouncing
escape.”
‘Ontaarde Kunst’ (Improper Art), Johfra came
across the Surrealist works of Dali, Ernst, Tanguy,
and Magritte. Particularly Dali’s works struck a
chord with him, and this modern master was added
to his more classical pantheon. He began painting
surrealist works with a classical technique in 1941.
Since his studies (1934 - 1942) co-incided with
the Second World War and the German occupation
of Holland, the teenager suffered all this time
through food and fuel rationing, hunger, and even
Allied bombings. In 1945, an Allied bomb destroyed
all the works he’d accomplished up to that time -
some 400 paintings and 1000 drawings.
Rather than feeling depressed and defeated, this
tragic event inspired him to begin anew. He
produced allegorical self-portaits and dream-like
JOHFRA AND DIANA
landscapes with slender organic forms, their torn
draperies moved by invisible winds. He also
produced Surrealist works in classical technique at Still, through a series of April Fool
a time when figurative art was pronounced ‘dead’ circumstances, the two of them became intimate. He
and Surrealism deemed ‘outmoded’ and ‘kitsch’ His called her, at various times, Angel, Anushka, and
first exhibition in 1943, under the name Johfra, Diana. They soon became engaged and, in 1952,
received negative critiques.
they married. Keeping one of those nicknames and
adopting his surname, Angèle Thérèse Blomjous
eventually became Diana Vandenberg.

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