Biography of Johannes Jacobus (Jan) van Heel

Johannes Jacobus (Jan) van Heel (born 27 July 1898 – the Hague, 5 October 1990) was a Dutch painter.
Training as a teacher and was followed by Very to 1925 in Rotterdam in education. He visited to 1925 the evening classes of the Rotterdam Academy of art and Technical Sciences at among others David Bautz, Johannes Gerardus heijberg, Alexander van maasdijk and Herman Macdonald and received his act Signs M.O. In 1926, he moved to the Hague, where he got a position as an art teacher, first at a primary school and later at a Mulo. In 1941 he made murals for the public reading room in the Hague. After World War II from 1945 to 1946 he lived and worked in the Studio of Wim Safaris in Paris.

In 1946 he received an appointment as Professor at the Hague Johan de Witt Lyceum, where he would remain until 1968. He kept his studio there, however, until 1983. From 1947 to 1954 he was also lecturer at the free Academy, where he taught among others to Dick Windward. He was a member of the Pulchri Studio and in 1928 one of the founders of the workers with Rein Drayer, Albert Ta and Piet bulthuis. In 1936 he was one of the founders of the artists ' group The Group. In 1951, he founded with Hague artists (among others Herman Berserik, Co Westerik, Willem Hussem and Jaap N) the Group Verve on and in 1960 the Group Fugare.

His work is included in the new Hague School. The themes with which the work of the whole of Fame were the clown and, after a first visit to Spain, especially the Spanish Earth, who are rude and unaffected showed. In his work did other colors are introduced: "saturated Brown, glowingly, burning Red ochres, concealed green". Of Very designed in 1956 for the PTT with Harry Deo and p. Wetselaar the series of stamps for the Olympic Summer Games in Melbourne. Van Heel was active in driving, advice, purchase and examination committees and juries. So he was a member of the selection committees for the Dutch Pavilion of the Venice Biennale (1954, 1960, 1962 and 1964) and the Paris Biennale (1959, 1961 and 1963). He was knighted in 1959 and in 1968 to officer of the order of Orange-Nassau.

The work of Van Heel is part of the collections of Museum Maassluis, the gemeentemuseum Den Haag, the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven, the Centraal Museum in Utrecht and the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede.