Name: Theresia van der Pant
Start: 2026-01-16T09:00:00
End: 2026-01-16T16:00:00
Location: Museum Beelden aan Zee

Friday 16 January

2026 10:00 - 17:00
Museum Beelden aan Zee
0,00 - 18,50

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A woman poses with a large sculpture in the studio.

Theresia van der Pant is one of the most important Dutch post-war sculptors of the 20th century. She mainly created abstract animal sculptures in a figurative style, beautifully rendered in bronze or stone. Animals were her favourite subject; she studied them extensively at Artis Zoo in order to capture their essence. She did not depict them as individuals, but created sculptures in which the characteristic shapes and postures determine the composition. Animals do not feign or pose, and that gave them a certain freedom," said Van der Pant. Giraffes, seals, fish, bison and especially birds are part of her oeuvre. Many of these sculptures are still on display in public spaces.

Portraits of people were the exception in her work. For example, she modelled the heads of composers such as Monteverdi and Stravinsky, figures with whom she felt a strong affinity. Her most famous sculpture is the equestrian statue of Queen Wilhelmina on the Rokin in Amsterdam, in which she beautifully combined human and animal figures.

Training and development

Theresia van der Pant completed a two-year preparatory course at the Rijksnormaalschool voor Teekenleraren (National Normal School for Art Teachers), which quickly gained her admission to the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten (National Academy of Fine Arts) in Amsterdam in the mid-1940s. In 1950, she worked for some time in the studio of Belgian sculptor Oscar Jespers in Brussels. Among other things, he taught her to develop her visual memory, a skill that would later prove very useful. From then on, she only modelled and drew from memory after extensive observation. Her breakthrough came in 1953, when she won second prize in the prestigious Prix de Rome for Sculpture. She moved into a small studio on the island of Wittenburg in Amsterdam and became a member of the Arti et Amicitiae artists' association. She soon received commissions from various municipalities for animal sculptures in public spaces.

Teaching and lifetime achievement awards

From 1965 onwards, Van der Pant taught stone carving at the Rijksakademie, where she was appointed professor of sculpture in 1979. In 1982, she left the academy. That same year, she married artist Nol Kneulman and exchanged her studio in Wittenburg for a house on Plantage Muidergracht, where she had a more spacious workshop and a separate drawing studio.

In 1987, Van der Pant received the Judith Leyster Prize, a lifetime achievement award for female artists. Two years later, she was honoured with a retrospective exhibition at the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem. On the occasion of her 65th birthday, this exhibition was then shown in her hometown of Schiedam.

At the age of 82, Theresia van der Pant was forced to give up her sculpting practice due to her health. She remained active as a draughtswoman until old age, often working in pastel and ink.