Jan Sierhuis - Character with bird - Sold

Jan Sierhuis
1964
oil paint on paper
100 x 73 cm dimensions of work

Johannes Alphonsus (Jan) Sierhuis (Amsterdam, 21 December 1928 – Amsterdam, 4 July 2023) was a Dutch painter.

Biography
Sierhuis grew up during the Depression years. His father died when he was two. In his early childhood he was already sculpting and drawing, and on his ninth birthday he received a painting set. As a boy, he was often on the move in Amsterdam. He grew up with cityscapes such as those by Israëls and Breitner. Although Sierhuis traveled all over the world, he always continued to regard himself as an Amsterdammer.[3] He attended vocational school to become a house painter, gaining extensive knowledge of materials.

Along with Appel, Corneille, and Lucebert, he stood at the center of post-war developments in art. In 1945, he was admitted to the evening program at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, which he left following a conflict. He was involved with the Experimentals in 1947 and the CoBrA group in 1948. However, he was too young to become a member. Later, in 1962, he co-founded the Amsterdam artists' group Groep Scorpio with Frans de Boo, Roger Chailloux, John Grosman, Guillaume Lo-A-Njoe, Karl Pelgrom, Pierre van Soest, Aat Verhoog, and Leo de Vries. They were "Angry Young Men," who wanted to approach exhibiting differently. The group was supported by Professor Hans Jaffé.

Jan Sierhuis taught at Ateliers '63 in Haarlem in 1968 and was affiliated with Psychopolis, the Free Academy in The Hague, as a supervisor from 1970 to 1979. In 1983, Sierhuis became a lecturer at the Rietveld Academy, and in 1984 at the Rijksakademie, Institute for Practical Study, both in Amsterdam.

Sierhuis received the Royal Grant for Painting for his work in 1956, and in 1957 he received a medal of the Thérèse van Duyl-Schwartze Portrait Prize. In 1987, he was awarded the Jeanne Oosting Prize. He also received an honorable mention at the Prix de Rome. In 2002, he was made an Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau.

Sierhuis passed away on July 4, 2023, at the age of 94 in his hometown of Amsterdam.