The dutch painter Jan Mankes lived from 1889 until 1920. Already during
his life he was called the "most delicate of all dutch painters". This
is a good characterisation of the essence of his art. Jan Mankes mainly
painted subjects from his daily surrounding. He would study his subjects
so long he could "almost dream them". At that point he started painting
that dream. In a letter to his maecenas Pauwels Jan writes:
"I paint or rather wish to paint paintings, silent but singing, singing
indeed by their silence"(october 20 1911)
For me not only this quotation relates the beautifull song "The Sound
of Silence" by Paul Simon to Jan Mankes and his work.
Because of his precise way of working, combined with his early decease
his total works amount only appr. 200 paintings, 50 pieces of graphic
art and over 100 drawings and sketches.
Unfortunately all literature about this painter is written in dutch,
so it is very difficult to present information about his life and works
to people who cannot read the dutch language. I will try to add at least
a minimum of english information to this website in the near future.
Fortunately Jan Mankes' own language is the universal language of painters,
so everybody can still enjoy the beauty of his creations. Please follow
the link at the bottom of this page to some of the summits of his works.
In case you would like to see more of his works you can follow the link
"Alle werken" on top of this page, which leads you to a chronological
list of all of his works.
In this list of works you can either click on a thumbnail, to get a
larger picture in a pop-up window, or you can click on the title, which
will lead you to a page with a larger image and some more details (size,
signature, exhibitions etc.) about the work.
The signature on top of each page will always take you to the home page
of this site
The three selfportraits on that page can lead you to the three categories
of his work:
"Tekeningen" => "Drawings and sketches"
"Schilderijen" => "Paintings"
"Grafiek" => "Graphic art"
The paintings of Jan Mankes can be found in many Dutch museums,
the most important are the collections in
Museum for Modern Art in Arnhem,
Scheringa Museum in Spanbroek and
Museum Belvedere
in Oranjewoud (which is very close to de Knijpe, waar Jan lived from 1909 until 1915)
Please donot hesitate to send your questions and comments by e-mail
