Henny was born in a large family in Lisse (Netherlands). She grew up as the youngest of the ten children of Piet van Hartingsveldt and Mien Engelberts. In this family creativity and music played a big role. They loved to relax with hobby-work, making music and singing besides all the necessary work that had to be done. So, when she had the opportunity, during school holidays, to visit a ceramic pottery workshop in Haarlem, her creative spirit developed even more.

Henny van Hartingsveldt (1952) is fifteen years old when she gets her first lessons in ceramics in Haarlem from potter Henk van der Linden. He teaches her pottery and every Saturday she can work in his studio. After her teacher suddenly passes away in 1969, she decides to continue with this subject after her high school education. In 1970 she opens an independent pottery “De Pottenkijker” in Lisse for several years; then she works in the Psychiatric Hospital Vogelenzang in Bennenbroek as coordinator of activities.

She moves to the North of the Netherlands and later to Overijssel and follows classes in ceramics and modelling in Groningen and in Kampen respectively. In 1989 she completes the study in Creative Manual Art. From 1986 Henny works in her own studio. From 2003 – 2013 she works as studio assistant in the ceramics department of the Quintus Center of Art Education in Kampen. In 2013 Henny and her husband Marc de Klijn move to Israel to settle there permanently.

From potter to sculptor

From the work in the pottery an autonomous language of ceramic sculptures develops, which is expressed in monumental stylized or completely abstract sculptures. The human figure is an element that repeatedly appears in her work. She is deeply moved by the Shoah, and she is profoundly impressed by her visit to the concentration camps, Auschwitz-Birkenau, but also Bergen Belsen, Mauthausen, Theresiënstadt and Dachau. This causes her work to undergo a substantial deepening, which is strongly determined by individual human suffering. Together with her husband she makes two books, i.e. “De doden zullen herrijzen” (2004) and “Shoulder to Shoulder, sites in the promised land” (2011)

A selection from the theme “Pottery”

Themes

Her themes cover the following topics: People in relationship, with each other and with the Divine, suffering, actual events in daily life. In recent years she focuses in her work on the meaning of Israel, the history of the Jewish people, the sacrifices and the promises, derived from the Torah and the Prophets and the recognition of Yeshua HaMashiah within a Jewish context.

A selection from the theme: “Life cycle & Shoah”

New techniques

Besides the ceramic sculptures Henny also uses other materials or she combines ceramics with other materials. This often leads to an exciting combination.

Photography and Poems

Henny’s photography is, next to the writing of poems, an addition to her work as a sculptor. She sometimes uses it as an autonomous image, but also in relation to the spatial work. The poems function more as a meditative element and are sometimes used as an addition.