Jan van der Zee - Groninger Ploeg - jaren 50/60 Abstracte linosnede - potloodgesigneerd - Sold

• During his lifetime, the artist Jan van der Zee left behind a very extensive oeuvre that is very varied in both style and medium. These include paintings, lithographs, drawings, woodcuts and linocuts, watercolors and furniture.

Jan van der Zee was born in Leeuwarden but has lived in Groningen for most of his life. He receives his first drawing lessons from Jan Mankes and in 1913 he starts his education at Academy Minerva in Groningen. When he is mobilized in 1916 to fight in the First World War, he meets Bart van der Leck, who later proves to be a great source of inspiration for his post-war work. When Jan van der Zee joins the Groningen art circle De Ploeg in 1923, he starts working within constructivism and, together with Wobbe Alkema and Hendrik Werkman, forms the counterpart of expressionism. Unlike the Russian constructivists, who are interested in applying their ideas in society in addition to abstraction, Van der Zee is mainly interested in the aesthetic elements of this visual language. The compositions created during this time are made up of abstract, geometric areas of color and often depict buildings and landscapes. Van der Zee returns to figurative work after 1926. His subjects still depicted the Groningen landscape and the city itself before the Second World War in a sober and dark colour, after 1945 with much more colour. And although Van der Zee starts to abstract his subjects again within the figurative, it never becomes completely abstract, his work always remains based on reality. Looking back on his oeuvre, the Groningen landscape has always remained the pivot in his work: farmers with their horses, harbor views or the industrial landscape in the city. Another recurring theme is the landscape and cities of the Flemish Leie basin, an area that Van der Zee visited after the war and which made a great impression on him. The work of Jan van der Zee is represented with twelve works in the collection of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, which in 1960 already devoted an exhibition to the artist's woodcuts.