Links een foto van Frist van der Meer schrijvend aan zijn bureau. Rechts een foto van zijn zus Martina die aan het lezen is.

Reading along with Frits van der Meer and his sister Martina

16 December 2025 News item

Frits van der Meer (1904-1994) was a celebrated priest-scholar, essayist and art historian, who was awarded the P.C. Hooft Prize in 1963. The 135 letters he wrote to his sister Martina – a recluse, icon painter and barefoot Carmelite nun in Drachten – have been preserved. They have recently been annotated and accompanied by a sparkling biography by church historian Ton van Schaik, published by Amsterdam University Press.

Key figures

As a priest, Van der Meer was a key figure between the worlds of religion and art history. A genius, with all the eccentric behavioural traits that go with it. He was an innovator who took the oldest sources seriously and enriched them with new meaning. In his research and publications, Van der Meer brought Catholic heritage to life and laid the foundations for cultural and art-historical research at the then young Catholic University of Nijmegen, now Radboud University. With his theological writings and inspiring art history bestsellers, he reached a wide and large international audience.

His candid epistles are melodious, informative, humorous, with sharp commentary on current events. In addition to outspoken opinions, there are also silences, indignation and friendship, distant places and longing for his home province of Friesland.

links rector José Sanders en rechts overste zuster Lucia van Steensel, beide met een exemplaar van het boek in handen. — Boekpresentatie aan prof. dr. José Sanders, rector magnicifus Radboud Universiteit en overste zr. Lucia van Steensel, voorzitster federatie Ongeschoeide Karmelietessen

Personal encounters

During the presentation of the book of letters on 28 November 2025 at the KDC in Nijmegen, church historian Ton van Schaik, the initiator of this publication, took Van der Meer's many fans back to the persona of Frits through hilarious personal encounters. Historian Brian Heffernan took us into the inner chamber of the Carmelite convent where Martina felt at home and, through her desire for strict seclusion, moved with the desire for individual expression of the 1960s. Both lectures will appear as articles in the January 2026 issue of the magazine Impressie.

Art-historical significance

Willy Piron of the Centre for Art-Historical Documentation explained how Van der Meer built up an extensive art-historical image archive and donated it to the University of Nijmegen. He worked closely with talented photographers such as Hans Sibbelee, who, as a communist, was almost his polar opposite. Jurijn Timon de Vos traced the life and changing reputation of Frits van der Meer, while Sible de Blaauw, emeritus professor of art history in Nijmegen, brought Frits to life as an artist, with his fascination for the Apocalypse, the originality of early Christian art, the Gothic cathedral as a turning point in medieval culture, and as a promoter of young and old painters and artists.

Together, these lectures provided a strong impetus for a reappraisal of the many qualities of this idiosyncratic, original artist-researcher.

More about the book

More about the magazine Impressie