Hague artist Kees Andrea (1914) has long played an active part in the artistic life of the Netherlands. Despite his advanced age, he still continues to draw and paint on an almost daily basis. In homage to one of the city's outstanding artists, over forty of his works are displayed in the museum's Print Room.
Andrea is most famous for his colourful, imaginative paintings of landscapes and interiors with human and animal figures. Some are impressions from his daily life, but more often they are inspired by his travels to Hungary, Spain and Central America.
Andrea says he feels an affinity with the expressionists, "but without the violent distortion typical of the German and Flemish expressionists." "I try to achieve harmony between people, animals and objects. And I try to express the mystery of life through painting. The surrealist side of my work must appear perfectly natural. There has always been a close tie between man and nature. The atmosphere created by colour, form and line in a painting is highly poetic.”