Gerda van der Elsken

BEPPIE is a moving and disarming portrait of an Amsterdam street urchin. Van der Keuken once described her as follows: 'She was ten years old and the joy of the Achtergracht, where I was living at the time. An Amsterdam child, sweet and crooked as a corkscrew.' He films her while she skims the city with some friends and knocks at strangers' doors. Her family has nine children and is not well off. In those days, a visit to the De Miranda swimming pool cost a quarter, but only ten cents if the weather was bad. At school, Beppie gets a poor mark because she is too boisterous, but when the whole class rattles off the multiplication tables, she joins in at the top of her voice. All of TV-watching Holland was wildly enthusiastic about this portrait, with which Van der Keuken even made the front page of the national newspaper De Telegraaf.

As part of the celebrations for 100 years of Amsterdam’s Vondelpark in 1965, the Vondelpark was transformed into a massive sculpture garden under the direction of Stedelijk Museum director Sandberg. 25 epic artworks by well-known artists such as Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, Shinkichi Tajiri and Jean Tinguely were placed in the park. Karel Appel was also represented, by a gigantic elm tree trunk brightly painted in Appel’s characteristic manner.

As part of the celebrations for 100 years of Amsterdam’s Vondelpark in 1965, the Vondelpark was transformed into a massive sculpture garden under the direction of Stedelijk Museum director Sandberg. 25 epic artworks by well-known artists such as Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, Shinkichi Tajiri and Jean Tinguely were placed in the park. Karel Appel was also represented, by a gigantic elm tree trunk brightly painted in Appel’s characteristic manner.