About Us
About Masterpeace is comprehensive catalogue of all the select art works and writings of Gerrit Verstraete.
This website's objective is to manage sustainability and continuity for the voice of Gerrit Verstraete’s art, by creating a comprehensive chronicle in print and digital format that invites people to view the work and hear the creative and inspirational voice of the artist. This website is a compilation of many previous websites dating back some fifteen years.
Pictured below: "Hopmanshuis," Zwolle, Netherlands. This 17th century building was home to my first art school, 1950, at age 5.
Below: Enkstraat 62, my childhood home in Zwolle, Netherlands. Note: the unit ( in light brown brick ) is attached to the elementary school where I attended.......
.... a long way from my present-day studio (below) as seen in 2009, before renovations.
Pictured left (and news article above): Gerrit Verstraete's first commercial design, the 1961 crest for the Sydenham Valley Conservation Authority ( now St.Clair Region Conservation Authority ), Ontario. He was a Grade 10 student, age 16, at the Wallaceburg District Secondary School, Wallaceburg, Ontario.
“The Canadian artist Gerrit
Verstraete has helped create greater awareness of the diversity and quality of
metalpoint drawing in the United States and Canada as well as globally. He continues
to assist galleries and museums in planning metalpoint exhibitions.”) Stacey Sell, Hugo Chapman, "Drawing in Silver and Gold: Leonardo to Jasper Johns," National Gallery of Art, Washington; The British Museum, London. (2015)
“You belong to a long and talented line of artists working in metalpoint.” Hugo Chapman , Keeper of Prints & Drawings, The British Museum, London.
Wallaceburg Bookbinding and Mfg., which my father Chris Verstraete began in the early 1960's in Wallaceburg, Ontario. I designed the WBM logo and today (2022) logo and business still prosper in town but under new ownership.
Pictured above: "The Three Sisters," Cat.No.808, 2006.
Pictured above: (left) "Collaborative," black & whiter, 1950. The earliest known of my work in collaboration with fellow students at "Hopmanshuis." ( age 5.)
Above (right) Pen and ink drawing, 1960. (age 10.)
Above: Early paintings, left: 1960, right:1969
Pictured above: 1963. Gerrit Verstraete receives the Bending Art Trophy for "best artist in high school," during a special ceremony at the Wallaceburg District Secondary School. He was a Grade 12 student ( age 18 ). L to R: Principal Allan, Gerrit Verstraete, Bending family representative.
Pictured below: Rozemarijn Straat, the street where I was born in Zwolle, Netherlands one day after Liberation Day of the city, April 15, 1945.
