102988 | GREAT BRITAIN & NETHERLANDS. "The Garden of Eden" cast bronze Medal.

102988  |  GREAT BRITAIN & NETHERLANDS. "The Garden of Eden" cast bronze Medal. Issued 1997 (95mm, 359.70 g, 12h). By Gustaaf Hellegers for the British Art Medal Society.

 

HENCEFORTH ALL WILL BE DIFFERENT, two-doored gateway, with branches in the background; above and below, dotted lines with three pairs of scissors // Window in the same shape as the gateway on the obverse, with interior set in bas-relief: nondescript vista, with apple on ledge in foreground to right. Edge: 23.

 

Attwood 132 & p. 19; The Medal 32 (Spring 1998), pp. 139-140; De Beeldenaar (September/October 1998), p. 225. As Made. Deep green surfaces, with a paler dusty green nature for highlights. Number 23 from an output of just 47 pieces.

 

About the artist and his creation, the workup in the Spring 1998 issue of The Medal mentions that "...born in 1937 at Teteringen in The Netherlands, the sculptor and medallist Guus Hellegers trained at the Royal Academy of Plastic Arts, The Hague, from 1954 to 1959, and at the National Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, from 1964 to 1965. Since then he has contributed to many exhibitions in The Netherlands and other countries, and has been represented at FIDEM exhibitions since 1969. His work is in many public and private collections, and has been the subject of a number of publications. Hellegers was for some years art critic of the "Leeuwarder Courant." In 1996 he won the FIDEM grand prize at Neuchâtel, and as a result of this was invited to the BAMS 1997 conference at York and commissioned to make a medal for the society. For the artist's own account of his work, see p. 71. The artist describes the genesis of his BAMS medal, "The Garden of Eden": 'When everything is possible, it is sometimes hard to choose. For some time I have had a file on structures for my medals. This file is expanding continually. I had a structure of branches, which I wished to use for my design, so I made a cast and scratched a large gate across it. The twigs were coming into leaf. A gate with a thicket behind it. A gate invites you to open it. You have to go through it. But how? I added a small pair of scissors. You have to make a conscious choice to go through on this medal. How to continue? Whenever I am engaged in making a medal, I play with ideas for the text. When you go through such a strange gate, what do you find, what will happen to you? All can become different. All will become different. All will be different? Yes, henceforth all will be different. Now the reverse... In my larger sculptures I am working on dreamgates. Perhaps a dreamgate for this reverse? Or my home as my castle? A castle in the air? Daydream? My dream is my castle? Did I have in mind perhaps that everyone should have a place in which to retreat? Literally or figuratively? A hut, a nest, as long as it is a safe place? A nest as a dream? Yes. And underneath a town, a kind of Manhattan, big, huge, and above it a cloud with a simple nest, floating. By now it was time to go to York, to give my lecture to BAMS and to show how I was getting on with the medal. The evening before my presentation I suddenly knew the title of the medal: "The Garden of Eden." The society's council listened to what I had to say, and agreed with me that the reverse needed to be resolved. Back home again, I experimented further. Then I changed tack. A spiral, as a symbol of the journey through life? A nest surrounded by clouds? A sea with dunes below and clouds above? What did I want? None of it for the present. I wanted emptiness. I concentrated on other work for a time. Then, returning to it, I threw myself into modelling wax, melting it, mixing, carving, scratching. Landscapes emerged, unnamed but unmistakable. Not for the whole surface, as that would not fit with the obverse. It had to be a view, seen through a gate, or, yes, through a window. A window shaped like the gate, behind which an unknown landscape becomes visible. To enter this landscape, you must open your mind to freedom, to unknown vistas. You have to make a conscious choice. With an apple on the window sill, I returned to the title: "The Garden of Eden." 'Henceforth all will be different.'"

 

Upload: 1 July 2025.