Pieter and Joyce Miedema, The Netherlands/Canada
Artist
Gay Block
(American, born 1942)
Date1988 (printed 2001)
MediumChromogenic print
DimensionsImage: 18 1/2 × 14 7/16 in. (47 × 36.7 cm)
Support: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
Mat: 24 × 20 in. (61 × 50.8 cm)
Support: 20 × 16 in. (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
Mat: 24 × 20 in. (61 × 50.8 cm)
ClassificationsPhotograph
Credit LineMuseum purchase with funds from Ed Osowski, 2011
Object number2011.8
DescriptionMan in white shirt and red necktie seated in a beige upholstered armchair; woman in blue dress standing next to him, wearing a turquoise-colored patterned dress, her head cropped out at the top of picture.eMuseum Notes
Crippled by a stroke, Pieter Miedema is no longer able to tell the story of his life as a young minister in the Netherlands during World War II. His wife Joyce, who also appears in the picture, explains that when he found out about Nazi persecution of the Jews, he urged his congregation to offer shelter to refugees. The Miedemas took in several children during the war and found homes for a group of children being evacuated from a sanatorium. Pieter built an underground bunker in the woods for one family and delivered food and books. "Pieter said he never wanted recognition," Joyce explained. "It's what everyone should have done, he thought, so there was nothing special about it."
On View
Not on viewTerms
- portraits
- men
- women
- interior views
- rooms
- Judaism
- heroes
- heroines
- world wars
- social ethics
Gay Block
1981, 2006 (printed 2015)
