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As we celebrate women, the upcoming exhibit in the Mosely Gallery on the campus of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore will feature portraits of Women of the World by Dutch artist Rieneke Leenders. Each painting is an intimate portrayal, capturing the beauty, spark and cultural identity of its subject.
The exhibit opens March 8 with a 4 p.m. lecture by the artist and a reception following. Women of the World by Rieneke Leenders will remain on display until March 30.Around the globe, International Women's Day marks a celebration of the economic, social, cultural and political achievements for women. The first IWD was held Feb. 28, 1909, in the United States. In 1910, the International Socialist congress in Copenhagen unanimously voted to establish an international women's day in honor of the movement for women's rights and to assist the struggle for universal women's suffrage. During the following year one million people demonstrated worldwide, demanding the right of women to vote, to hold public office, vocational training and an end to discrimination.
This movement became international when on March 8, 1917, a day was held to commemorate the struggle of Russian Women protesting against food shortages and the First World War. Ten years later (1927) the first International Womens' Day was held in the United Kingdom and in 1975 the United Nations designated March 8 as celebration of women's achievement.
Now IWD is always celebrated March 8 and is an occasion marked by women's groups around the world. This date is also commemorated at the United Nations and is designated in many countries as a national holiday. When women on all continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.
UMES's Mosely Gallery celebrates IWD with the exhibition "Women of the World by Rieneke Leenders." Rieneke Leenders was born and raised in the Netherlands, where she met Thijs, her husband. After graduating as a gold- and silversmith, she spent a few years working as such in Toronto, Canada. There she and Thijs started the trip of their life: a honeymoon around the world that lasted almost five years.
During this adventure she learned to love and appreciate people and their cultures and recorded memories of them on photographs, which she still uses as references for the portrait paintings she is known for.
After this trip, Rieneke lived a few years in the Netherlands, where she studied sculpture and her two sons were born. Her husband organized photo-safaris through Africa.
Occasionally she joined him with their first son, Floris (who, before his third birthday bathed in the Indian Ocean, crossed the Sahara desert and danced with the Pygmies).
After the second son was born, they settled for a steadier life, first in Spain, later in Virginia Beach.
Here Rieneke started absorbing the techniques of watercolor, using the memories of travel as her motif. Her passion for painting lead to several leading positions in the local art world. She is a founding member and vice president of the Multicultural Alliance of Virginia, president of the Virginia Watercolor Society, secretary of Chesapeake Bay Watercolorists and president of Tidewater Artists Association.
In her large paintings of ethnic women from all over the world she likes to evoke emotions through the use of color and light. She relates, "my extensive travels around the world have created in me a loving fascination for the people, places, and cultures of the world. I feel compelled to paint that. Most of all I like to paint portraits of people that I have met. While painting, I try to convey my experience of emotions in the portrait."
Her love for ethnic portraits stems from extended travels around the world. She is compelled to paint the beautiful people she has met and hopes that the cultural diversity will stay forever, for this is what makes this world so fascinating.
Rieneke Leenders became very successful, with regional exhibitions and she was invited to have two exhibitions at the World Bank in Washington; one was a small show held in concurrence with the Women Leaders Convention (April 2005) and later that year a large exhibition during the annual meeting. Part of this show was purchased by the World Bank, mostly portraits of women from countries where the World Bank is active.
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