Piet Hein Eek

Dutch artist Tom Claassen, 47, has been active in the arts both nationally and internationally for more than 20 years. He is primarily known for his pieces created for public venues - not only in the art circuit, but also by the public at large. Almost everyone has seen his family of elephants along the A6 motorway in Almere or has stumbled across his two enormous sitting men at Schiphol Airport. Claassen’s work is often positioned along the border between culture and nature and is firmly rooted in the sculpture tradition, while at the same time featuring an original, playful and personal touch. His works in public spaces, like the elephants, sparrows donning pearl necklaces in Haarlem and drooling dog in a Tilburg park, are endearing, in spite of their enormity. It is precisely this extreme magnification that creates an interruption in the landscape or urban cityscape, while the often soft and rounded shapes and awkwardness of the animal with its own weight invite us to caress them. But this proves to be deceitful, since the material that looks so soft and inviting is actually bronze. Likewise, those sculptures that appear hard and uninviting to the touch turn out to be made of rubber. The work of Tom Claassen can also be found in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Centraal Museum in Utrecht, Museum Beelden aan Zee in Scheveningen, and the Gateway Foundation in St. Louise, USA.

Tom Claassen’s ‘Eeken wooden men’ Since the late 1990s Tom Claassen has been creating ‘wooden men’, who ‘live’ in the sculpture garden of the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, among other places. The inspiration for these men originates in Denmark, where Tom Claassen lives. The large numbers of Swedish men often found in and around Copenhagen lying around completely smashed on the grass in the parks or slumped against a tree inspired Tom to translate this sight into sculpture, and thus the ‘wooden men’ were born.
A ‘second generation‘ of these men has now been born. This was the result of a unique collaboration in which the one artist makes his talents available to the other. The ‘Eeken wooden men’ are now being produced for Tom Claassen by Piet Hein Eek in the Eindhoven workshop. The latest generation is available in sitting, lying, slumping and standing positions and numbered by the year. A unique possibility exists to commission the creation of your very own 'Eeken wooden man'. If you have a chopped-down tree lying around, a sitting, lying, standing or slumping man can be created on the spot.