Jan van Heel

Jan van Heel was trained as a teacher and worked in this profession in Rotterdam until 1925. During this time, he attended evening classes at the Rotterdam Academy of Fine Arts and Technical Sciences and earned a diploma in drawing. In 1926, he moved to Den Haag, where he taught drawing at various types of schools.

In 1941, van Heel created murals for the Public Reading Room in Den Haag. After World War II, he lived and worked in Paris for two years. Subsequently, he was employed as a teacher at the Johan de Witt Lyceum in The Hague, where he remained until 1968. He kept his studio there even until 1983. From 1947-1954 he also taught at the Free Academy.

Van Heel first painted in a moderate expressionist style and co-founded the groups De Werkers (1928) and De Groep (1936). After his stay in Paris in 1946, he gradually developed his own figurative language. In his landscapes, figures and still lifes, often painted in earth colors such as rusty brown, ocher and yellow, fluctuate between figuration and abstraction. His work is considered part of the New Hague School.

In the early 1950s, van Heel and other Den Haag artists founded the group Verve and in 1960 the group Fugare. The painters active in these groups wanted to break with the conventions of the pre-war period but were less radical than some of the Amsterdam associations.

Van Heel became known showing clowns and, after a visit to Spain, especially the rough Spanish soil. In 1956, he was involved in the design of a series of stamps for the Melbourne Olympics. Van Heel also served as a member of the selection committees for the Dutch contributions to the Venice and Paris Biennials. In 1959, he was appointed Knight and in 1968, Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau.

His 1952 entry Training on Saturday afternoon was an oil painting from 1951/52. It shows some youngsters playing football on a field near Villa Sadi Carnot in Paris.