Malie Baehr

Mallie Baehr's paintings and sketches are a joy for anyone who enjoys people watching, and especially so for those with roots in Amsterdam.

This makes us proud we are able to show them here, even though they don't have a particularly Jewish theme. Malie Baehr has had numerous exhibitions in galleries in the Netherlands and even some abroad. Hher oil paintings of street scenes in Amsterdam, the place where Malie Baehr lives and works, are gaining in popularity.

Malie about her work:
"I have an impressionist touch, since that is the way I look at things. I catch the moments that captivate me in sketch pads or on small format watercolour paper. I always carry paper and pens. I spend a lot of time walking through Amsterdam and love to ramble in the country. Because people in their natural habitat are my thing, I don't get much time to catch those special moments. I usually work on my sketches afterwards in my studio, trying to evoke the atmosphere that struck me.
I work out my sketches in watercolours and base my oil paintings on these. Colour, light and atmosphere are what counts; form is less important than these.
This past year I have been concentrating on the small streets surrounding my studio."

Malie calls herself "largely autodidact". She painted at the Vrije Academie in The Hague for some years and took lessons at the Wackers Academy in Amsterdam for a year. But, she says, "I learned most of all in the studio of painter/sculptor Hans Bayens. This is where I found the atmosphere I was looking for and could relate to. I also feel an affinity with the painter Isaac Israels. Apart from these two, there are many painters I love and consider important, even though I paint in a completely different style."