In the fall of 2009 when I was doing my final exhibition at my gallery, an international entrepreneur from the Netherlands, Wijnand Pon, asked me to create “a painting about a meter by a meter and a half, of my farm, Coopon Flora”. His instructions were very vague, only that the handling must be loose. He explained that this painting would hang in his boardroom in the Netherlands.
From the two sketches that I emailed to him in February, he selected the one that he preferred. Without further comment I proceeded to paint, on stretched canvas, a view of this extraordinary farm. Along the process, photos were emailed to him. As he is an international businessman, I would get replies from exotic places like North Africa. His comments were unfailingly positive.
With his final approval by email I took the painting from the stretcher and his manager, Henk Schuurmans from Coopon Flora, delivered the painting to Mr. Pon.
