Artist Ans Wortel became known to the general public after winning the 1963 Biennale de la Jeunesse, a prestigious annual art prize awarded to emerging artists.

Ans Wortel was now in her thirties and had only begun to identify as an artist a few years earlier. She had never dared to call herself an artist before.

Ans Wortel won the prize because, in a period when abstract art was prevalent, she chose to create explicitly non-abstract art. She remained true to figuration and believed it was important that people could perceive a perceptible reality in her work. She was innovative, unique, and unconventional in entirely different areas: her interplay of forms, use of color, symbols, and themes.

That same year, her work was featured in highly acclaimed exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. Even the most prominent art critics, who had previously written about the death of figurative art, were nothing but enthusiastic about the non-abstract innovation Ans Wortel brought.

People admired the themes Wortel dared to address in her often deeply personal artworks. She chose subjects that played a significant role in her own life and was candid about what it means to be a woman, mother, and lover. In this way, she stood out sharply from the prevailing trends in the art world at the time.

Ans Wortel's work always features numerous hands and eyes. She did this for a specific reason. As she herself said: "With hands, you depict, and the canvas must look. There must be an eye in all my drawings; that drawing must not only be looked at, but must also be able to look back. Otherwise, it wouldn't be honest." Her works must not only convey a certain activity but also engage the viewer. Another characteristic element of Ans Wortel's work is the one- or two-line text beneath the image. These texts sometimes serve as a form of explanation, but more often they are mystifying and always poetic. In this way, she was able to convey her feelings and message to a wider audience through words and images.

The founders of the Witte Zwaan Foundation recognized themselves in the message of the gouache because of the significance of water and land for the bulb industry: " our good Mother Earth, and we, her offspring, of water and land…."