UTW 49

Homage to Dutch Righteous person and teacher Joop Westerweel

Art: 2003
Media: Ink, colored pencil, gouache on paper with artified mat.
Framed: 25.5 in. H x 33 1/4 W [64.7 H cm x 84.45 cm W]

Westerweel was born in 1899. A progressive Christian and a teacher, he was  a leader of an anti-Nazi resistance group. The organization Westerweel was involved with helped smuggle Jews to France and from there into Spain. Westerweel was murdered by Nazi soldiers at the Vught concentration-death camp where he was first tortured, then executed, August 11, 1944.

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At least 30,000 prisoners, including children, were murdered at Vught or transferred from there to the Nazi extermination-death camps in Poland or to other concentration-death  camps where they were murdered.

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In 1954 the Israeli Holocaust Memorial, called Yad Vashem, posthumously awarded him the title of 'Righteous Among the Nations.'

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The mat includes collaged-on original sketches drawn by Segan in Jerusalem; at the Palm Beach zoo in West Palm Beach, Florida and at the Woodlawn Park Zoo, Seattle. Other sketches include from  the Seattle waterfront and drawings done directly on the mat and/or over the earlier-made sketches. Some of the earlier made drawings include 3 architectural sketches made in Jerusalem, 1999 (seen at upper left; right center, upper right in the mat area); a sketch of Segan’s late father (upper right in the mat); 2 sketches of a pet mouse drawn when Segan was house-sitting for friends in Seattle (upper left in the mat); and a parakeet that had been a pet of the artist (top center).

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The words ‘Neu! Hendl wie noch nie Chicken McNuggets’ were on a paper McDonalds placemat the artist had saved during a visit to Vienna in 1985.

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An 11. min., 22 sec. video about the drawing.

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A 4 min., 20 sec video of Segan talking about the drawing at an exhibit in 2013.

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The Under the Wings of G-d art series name was shortened to Under the Wings in 2013.