De Nieuwe Ploeg

De Nieuwe Ploeg was a group of artists in Voorburg in the 1950s who organised exhibitions, both of their own work and of artists outside Voorburg. Frits Becht and Wim Beeren were the initiators of the Nieuwe Ploeg. They worked closely with Voorburg artists such as Aart van den IJsse, Rudi Rooijakkers and Jan Snoeck. They organised exhibitions of avant-garde artists, who were innovative and progressive in many areas. De Nieuwe Ploeg was one of the first in the Netherlands to organise outdoor exhibitions of sculptural art, which were controversial because they showed the earliest non-figurative sculptural art, often using non-traditional materials. The debut exhibitions of sculptors such as Carel Visser, Aart van den IJssel, Jan Snoeck and Lotti van der Gaag took place in this context. In the field of painting, De Nieuwe Ploeg organized early exhibitions of artists such as Constant, Piet Ouborg, Kees van Bohemen, Co Westerik, Ferry Slebe and Gerard Verdijk.

This richly illustrated book presents this innovative and highly enterprising group of artists for the first time and provides backgrounds, biographies and the context of their important contribution to the development of post-war modern art in the Netherlands.