From March 10 through May 14, 2022, Wanrooij Gallery in Amsterdam presented a solo exhibition by Dutch photographer Julius Rooymans. In The Shadow of the Master , the gallery showed a new series of monumental photographic works and portraits.
Paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer , and Jan Steen came to life in the process. Filled with scenes and symbolism, the layered images reflected the Dutch Golden Age on an exceptionally large scale.
Artist Julius Rooymans is a storyteller fascinated by history and large-scale works. In 2019, he created Nachtwacht360 – The Other Side of Art, a photographic reconstruction featuring look-alikes and an imagined reverse side of Rembrandt’s iconic painting, which is displayed at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
In the new art project The Shadow of the Master , works by world-famous Dutch masters came together to illuminate the darker sides of an artist’s life, including love, self-mockery, poverty, grief, and adversity. As with Nachtwacht360 , the project recruited 180 look-alikes who resembled their counterparts from 350 years earlier.
With the cooperation of numerous renowned institutions, the photographs featured many original objects, tableware pieces, weapons, and sets.
Thanks to the expertise and tireless dedication of professionals such as makeup artist Arjen van der Grijn, costume designer Catherine Cuykens, and art historian Marieke de Winkel, the costumes, jewelry, and hairstyles were made historically accurate down to the smallest detail.
Julius Rooymans grew up in a family of artists and studied photography at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. By the time of the exhibition, he had been photographing for nearly 25 years and had created covers for Newsweek and The New York Times. The visual artist’s independent work had been shown at art fairs including Art Miami and KunstRAI and acquired for private and corporate collections. Rooymans lived and worked in Amsterdam.
In addition to the exhibition at Wanrooij Gallery, The Shadow of the Master was on permanent display at the AFAS Theater in Leusden.
