Pearl Perlmuter, 'Sheepman', 2001 (1967)

Location: Centrum Den Haag: Spui - Grote Marktstraat - Kalvermarkt

Not on the neck, but in front of it. This is how the shepherd carries the sheep he is about to wash. It is not easy to see, because in the 2001 pedestal sculpture 'Sheepman' by Pearl Perlmuter (b. 1915), man and animal have almost become one.

The first cast of “Sheepman” saw the light as early as 1967. During a vacation in Crete, Perlmuter observed shepherds lifting their sheep by their front legs before shearing them and lowering them into the water. For her, this was an almost ritual immersion from which she drew inspiration. Weaving her feelings and associations with the scene of the sheep shearers and their animals, Perlmuter arrived at the sculpture Sheepman. The plastic forms intertwine so strongly that it is difficult to unravel where the man begins and the animal ends. On his goat's legs, the shepherd almost becomes a mythological apparition, half animal half human.

With highly expressive images, Perlmuter created a furor after the war. Together with her husband Wessel Couzijn (1912-1984), Lotti van der Gaag (1923-1999) and Willem Reijers (1910-1958), she was among the innovators of sculpture in the Netherlands. What few dared to do, Perlmuter did. She surrendered herself to matter and experiment. Especially when she began modeling in wax rather than clay and plaster around 1957, mass and volume gave way to linear elements, and her bronzes became more abstract and free. However, it is not a joyful freedom that she depicts. Her art is a penetrating expression of anger at the injustices of the world. Personal experiences and themes of struggle and liberation run like a thread through Perlmuter's oeuvre. She has made fewer sculptures since the late 1970s, but Perlmuter remained combative and committed to women in the visual arts.