Artist and painter Jan Sierhuis passed away on Tuesday evening at the age of 94. Photographer Nico Koster, a friend of Sierhuis, confirmed this to ANP in the night from Wednesday to Thursday after earlier reports from The parole about the death of the artist.
Sierhuis was good friends with members of the Cobra movement, including Karel Appel and Corneille. According to good friend Koster, the latter even collected work by Sierhuis. “Appel appreciated him very much,” says Koster, although the group thought he was too young to officially join the art movement.
Sierhuis was not one of the best-known painters that the Cobra movement produced, but according to him this was not due to the quality of his work. In an interview with NH News in 2018 he sees that there were still four to five hundred paintings in his studio. “They are all top notch,” said the artist.
Influences
During the Second World War, Sierhuis mainly painted cityscapes, which he himself thought fit the style of George Hendrik Breitner. After the war he developed into an expressionist painter, influenced by Van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso, among others. In 1998, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam put together a major exhibition in honor of the Sierhuis’ seventieth birthday.
Sierhuis painted from the center of Amsterdam and sold his work on the spot. “It was always hit when I stood there. People asked, ‘Is that for sale artist?’ And then I asked fifty bucks for that,” said Sierhuis in an interview with NH Iconen. “I sold one painting after another.”