Johannes Adrianus George 'Jan' van Herwijnen was born on November 4, 1889 in Delft and died on April 12, 1965 in Bergen (NH). He was a Dutch painter and draftsman.
Jan van Herwijnen was an autodidact. He grew up in a working-class family and at the age of fourteen he already left for England, where he worked various jobs to earn his living. He even worked as a cook's mate on board seagoing vessels.
He developed his talent by copying paintings in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. In 1912 he received a grant from Mr. Van Riemsdijk, the director of the Rijksmuseum, which enabled him to devote himself entirely to painting and drawing. Van Herwijnen traveled extensively and spent some time in Paris and the South of France. In January 1920 he already had an exhibition in the Heystee building on the Herengracht in Amsterdam, where, among other things, his drawings were on display. In 1923 he exhibited in Collioure.
In 1919 he made a series of thirty large portrait drawings of psychiatric patients in the Willem Arntsz Hoeve in Utrecht. He is also known for his portraits of the deceased in the mortuary of the Wilhelminagasthuis in Amsterdam.
After working in Amsterdam, Arnhem until 1926, and Heemstede, he settled in Bergen in 1939, where his artistic style continued to develop. Here he painted landscapes, flowers and still lifes, which belong to the Bergen School.
Jan van Herwijnen was a member of Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam and of the KunstenaarsCentrumBergen (KCB) in Bergen.
In 2008 Museum Kranenburgh in Bergen hosted a major retrospective of his work entitled "Jan van Herwijnen, painter of self-preservation". Art historian Caroline Roodenburg-Schadd, curator at the Museum of Modern Art Arnhem (now Museum Arnhem), wrote a monograph with the same title on Van Herwijnen. The exhibition was curated by Paul van Herwijnen, the youngest son of Jan van Herwijnen, and Ype Koopmans.
From September 19, 2021 to January 9, 2022, the exhibition "Drawing from compassion" was on display in Museum More, with portraits of the patients of the Willem Arntsz Hoeve.
