Jan Nieuwenhuys
Encyclopedia
Jan Nieuwenhuys was a Dutch
painter and one of the early active founders of the Dutch Experimentalists group (Reflex) that later became part of CoBrA
.
.
Around the age of 14, Nieuwenhuys and his two year older brother decided to become painters. From 1938 to 1941 he attended the Rijksnormaalschool in Amsterdam. Later in the Second World War he also took lessons at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam. At the Rijksacademie he met Karel Appel
and Corneille
.
During World War II
Nieuwenhuys painted almost only clowns, nudes and couples making love. Just after the war he started painting fantasy animals like aggressive cocks, cats and bulls. He and his brother Constant had many arguments about his paintings. During the war Constant himself painted only Catholic
scenes like Pietà
and Maria portraits or still life
s and thought that Nieuwenhuys chose his subjects too lightly.
In 1948 Appel, Elburg, Kouwenaar, Wolvekamp, Corneille, Constant Nieuwenhuys
, Brands
, Rooskens and Nieuwenhuys founded the Experimentele Groep in Holland that a few months later became the European group CoBrA. Jan was in his paintings of this period influenced by dreams, children's drawings, the artistic expressions of mentally handicapped people and primitive art. Animals such as birds and cats play a leading role in most of his works, along with fantastic creatures and beings that are made up of a combination of human, animal and mechanical elements. A lot of the creatures balance on a rope or wear boats as a hat.
Nieuwenhuys was soon disappointed in the members of the CoBrA group, some of them were more interested in fame than being an activist. He could not stand the fighting that was going on between the members and so he left the group in the middle of 1949. Some other members also left, but they later rejoined for the great exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum
.
In 1964 he said in an interview: "The group was not founded as an exposition group but as a group of activists. We wanted to put an effort into that, to fight against the softness in art at the time and using our imagination to change that. Regrettably I must ascertain that many of the Experimentalists of that day also became esthetics. Everything official stops to be combatant. I think that work of some of them look very dormant these days".
Nieuwenhuys later concentrated only on his work. His paintings became more and more liberated and he experimented with different materials like fluorescent paint and everything he could get his hands on. Everything could become a painting.
In an interview from 1964 he said: "I start with my material and my color. With that I express myself. From the material I come to my subject and that is maybe contrary to what painters did in earlier days. I paint the way I write, the way I laugh. That is why I paint differently all the time, because my moods change. That’s the way I feel."
"As a painter I don’t want to paint a particular situation. I am not abstract, not really non-figurative. I try to be expressive and therefore I need certain images. Today I am in China, tomorrow in Paris, after tomorrow some other place. We are confronted every day with what happens in the world. You’re living on a specific spot, but also in the whole world. It’s maybe therefore that we become so ignorant and hard, because we experience too much. Hunger, war. That particular situation doesn’t mean anything anymore."
From the same interview: "I wish, if they see my work later on, that they can see the twentieth century. The artist must give his time a suit. And it doesn’t matter if he is an architect, poet or painter. In abstract painting I miss the beat of this time, the rudeness. We, the people of today we are living with the fear of an atom bomb. The abstracts are building only a superficial world for you."
He died in Amsterdam in 1986.
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
painter and one of the early active founders of the Dutch Experimentalists group (Reflex) that later became part of CoBrA
COBRA (avant-garde movement)
COBRA was a European avant-garde movement active from 1948 to 1951. The name was coined in 1948 by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home cities: Copenhagen , Brussels , Amsterdam .-History:...
.
Life and work
Nieuwenhuys was born in AmsterdamAmsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
.
Around the age of 14, Nieuwenhuys and his two year older brother decided to become painters. From 1938 to 1941 he attended the Rijksnormaalschool in Amsterdam. Later in the Second World War he also took lessons at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam. At the Rijksacademie he met Karel Appel
Karel Appel
Christiaan Karel Appel was a Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet. He started painting at the age of fourteen and studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in the 1940s...
and Corneille
Guillaume Cornelis van Beverloo
Guillaume Cornelis van Beverloo , better known under his pseudonym Corneille, was a Dutch artist.Corneille was born in Liege, Belgium, although his parents were Dutch and moved back to the Netherlands when he was 12. He studied art at the Academy of Art in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands...
.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Nieuwenhuys painted almost only clowns, nudes and couples making love. Just after the war he started painting fantasy animals like aggressive cocks, cats and bulls. He and his brother Constant had many arguments about his paintings. During the war Constant himself painted only Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
scenes like Pietà
Pietà
The Pietà is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus, most often found in sculpture. As such, it is a particular form of the Lamentation of Christ, a scene from the Passion of Christ found in cycles of the Life of Christ...
and Maria portraits or still life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
s and thought that Nieuwenhuys chose his subjects too lightly.
In 1948 Appel, Elburg, Kouwenaar, Wolvekamp, Corneille, Constant Nieuwenhuys
Constant Nieuwenhuys
Constant Anton Nieuwenhuys was a Dutch painter, and one of the foremost innovators of Unitary Urbanism. In 1941, he became deeply interested in the work of Paul Cézanne, Cubism and German Expressionism....
, Brands
Eugène Brands
Eugène Brands was a Dutch painter. He was briefly a member of the Cobra artist movement.In 1946, Eugène Brands participated in the group exhibition "Young Painters" in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where a whole room was filled with his work...
, Rooskens and Nieuwenhuys founded the Experimentele Groep in Holland that a few months later became the European group CoBrA. Jan was in his paintings of this period influenced by dreams, children's drawings, the artistic expressions of mentally handicapped people and primitive art. Animals such as birds and cats play a leading role in most of his works, along with fantastic creatures and beings that are made up of a combination of human, animal and mechanical elements. A lot of the creatures balance on a rope or wear boats as a hat.
Nieuwenhuys was soon disappointed in the members of the CoBrA group, some of them were more interested in fame than being an activist. He could not stand the fighting that was going on between the members and so he left the group in the middle of 1949. Some other members also left, but they later rejoined for the great exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum
Stedelijk Museum
Founded in 1874, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is a museum for classic modern and contemporary art in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It has been housed on the Paulus Potterstraat, next to Museum Square Museumplein and to the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and the Concertgebouw, in Amsterdam Zuid...
.
In 1964 he said in an interview: "The group was not founded as an exposition group but as a group of activists. We wanted to put an effort into that, to fight against the softness in art at the time and using our imagination to change that. Regrettably I must ascertain that many of the Experimentalists of that day also became esthetics. Everything official stops to be combatant. I think that work of some of them look very dormant these days".
Nieuwenhuys later concentrated only on his work. His paintings became more and more liberated and he experimented with different materials like fluorescent paint and everything he could get his hands on. Everything could become a painting.
In an interview from 1964 he said: "I start with my material and my color. With that I express myself. From the material I come to my subject and that is maybe contrary to what painters did in earlier days. I paint the way I write, the way I laugh. That is why I paint differently all the time, because my moods change. That’s the way I feel."
"As a painter I don’t want to paint a particular situation. I am not abstract, not really non-figurative. I try to be expressive and therefore I need certain images. Today I am in China, tomorrow in Paris, after tomorrow some other place. We are confronted every day with what happens in the world. You’re living on a specific spot, but also in the whole world. It’s maybe therefore that we become so ignorant and hard, because we experience too much. Hunger, war. That particular situation doesn’t mean anything anymore."
From the same interview: "I wish, if they see my work later on, that they can see the twentieth century. The artist must give his time a suit. And it doesn’t matter if he is an architect, poet or painter. In abstract painting I miss the beat of this time, the rudeness. We, the people of today we are living with the fear of an atom bomb. The abstracts are building only a superficial world for you."
He died in Amsterdam in 1986.