Willem Corsius from Groningen stops figure drawing after 40 years. ‘You don’t have to lead artists. They are free spirits

The Free Drawing Academy Jan Koster has existed for 75 years. Coinciding with that anniversary, the drawing group has to say goodbye to Willem Corsius (78). The artist and organizer of the drawing evenings thinks it’s enough. The illustrators will miss him after almost forty years in Pictura at the Martinkerkhof.

The reason

Corsius is no longer able to walk very well. His physical condition is the reason he quits. He is at peace with that: “I will continue to draw, but at home. That’s my life, I can’t live without it. Stopping also feels a bit like a liberation. I organized a lot and did it with great pleasure.”

Willem at school

Willem went to the Van Houten school in the Oosterpark district: “It was a rough school, but I wasn’t that at all. Because I could draw well, I was given a kind of bodyguard, a sturdy guy from the houseboat harbor.”

Once a new boy came to school. When he claimed that he could draw better than Corsius, he was mercilessly beaten. “I felt uncomfortable about that,” says the modest cartoonist. “I don’t come from an artistic background, but I was born as an artist, I think. They always thought I was special.”

To earn a living, Corsius was a graphic designer: “It’s difficult to make a living from art.” Corsius also takes photographs and has dozens of exhibitions to his name ( www.willemcorsius.nl ).

The beginning

De Ploeg is a well-known artist collective, founded in 1918 in this city in response to the artistic climate in Groningen. A number of young artists felt that the opportunities to exhibit were too limited.

The Free Drawing Academy is a continuation of De Ploeg. Corsius joined in 1984. He gradually grew into the role of organizer: “You don’t have to lead artists. They are free spirits.”

A highlight

“Around the turn of the century we organized an art market here. I have good memories of that. The mutual contact between the artists is also a highlight. We come to practice, but we are also almost friends.”

Corsius sometimes received special assignments, such as this one from a general practitioner: “Would you like to draw my wife? She is pregnant. I made about twenty brush drawings of her and he bought them all. I think she thought it was a less pleasant idea.”

Figure drawing

On average, about 15 professional artists come to draw a model, also to learn from each other. The models are more often women than men and pose without clothes: “Because we draw the figure they cannot wear clothes, they just get in the way.” Everyone draws in their own way and in their own way, with pencil, marker, pen, fineliner or brush.

Corsius also changes often: “If it gets boring, I choose something else.” The models receive compensation: “That’s how it should be, an interaction between performance and compensation.”

The lack

“We will miss him very much, Willem is a walking encyclopedia. He knows so much about photography, painting and materials. He has great stories and I never hear the same ones. We will continue, but it will be different without Willem.

Fortunately, I know where he lives,” says Harriët Geertjes, who also draws. Corsius rented the hall itself, where the group performed for 38 years, on the last evening. He wants to get together one more evening with all the co-signers he loves: “It’s a kind of treat evening on my part.” The model arrives and so the press can leave.

In a few more hours, Willem Corsius will carefully descend the steps of Pictura for the last time and an era will come to an end.