Vision and Dream:
The Art of Marja Lee Kruÿt
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"Love"
Marja Lee Kruÿt was born and raised in the Netherlands in the province of Drenthe, a beautiful, dolmen-studded region in the northeast of the country, near the German border. She spent five years studying fashion illustration design in Amsterdam, and at the age of twenty she embarked on a professional career as a fashion illustrator. In 1964, Marja moved to London, where she created fashion drawings for major stores in England and abroad, as well as for newspapers and magazines, such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. She was also involved in the ballet — both as a dancer and as a costumer for various productions, and she made clothes for a Plimlico boutique that catered to the likes of Marianne Faithful, Mick Jagger, Pete Townsend, and Brian Jones. It was while she was living in London (in a flat one floor above Quentin Crisp) that she met her future husband, Alan Lee, a talented book illustrator. In 1975, the couple moved to a rural village in the West Country, sharing a house with their friend and fellow-artist Brian Froud.
"Dream Harp"
Marja continued to pursue her London-based illustration career until her children were born, but afterwards (like so many other women artists of her generation) her fashion work was set aside while she raised her children and provided support for her husband's busy career. Yet even during those years, her own creative powers did not lie dormant. She made costumes for local theatrical productions, and for figures sculpted by doll-artist Wendy Froud; she drew portraits, designed hats and clothes, and studied the Celtic harp. In 1998, her children grown, a new chapter in her life began — and Marja returned to the studio once more, dividing her time between dual careers as a painter and a Celtic harpist. The astonishing pictures that she's creating now have an assurance and a rich maturity of vision that's been quietly brewing over all these years. They've emerged like dreams, straight from the subconscious, each one a treasure of mythic art.
"The Healing of Womanhood"
