Jacqueline de Jong: Upstairs-Downstairs 1984-88 – The Works on Paper

This pamphlet was produced to coincide with the gallery's 2022 presentation of Jacqueline de Jong's Upstairs-Downstairs works on paper (1984-88) and includes colour reproductions of a number of works, alongside an essay by Juliette Desorgues, Curator of Visual Arts, MOSTYN, Wales (excerpt below).

'Commissioned by the Amsterdam City Council in 1985 for the newly built City Hall, Jacqueline de Jong’s series Upstairs-Downstairs (1984-1988) has remained little known, yet it holds a central place in her wider oeuvre. Designed by Wilhelm Holzbauer and Cees Dam and completed in 1988, the building, which still exists and operates as a civic building today, was part of a wider complex, also home to the Dutch National Opera, Dutch National Ballet and Holland Symfonia. The series of 27 paintings by de Jong have adorned the city hall’s staircase and the four lift lobbies since 1989, before being removed and stored in 2017. They have since been acquired by the Amsterdam Museum. 

'Presented here in the exhibition at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery in London is a series of works on paper. Far from being subservient to the paintings, these drawings may be understood as works in themselves, considered within the context of de Jong’s vast multi-disciplinary work.'