Han Jansen (1931-1994) - Gezin

Family, 1960
Object data

Artist / Creator: Han Jansen (Johannes Regnerus Jozef Jansen, 1931–1994)
Signature: Signed and dated bottom right “Han J. ’60”.
Place of origin: Netherlands
With frame.
Dimensions of work: 108 × 43 cm
Dimensions including frame: 110 × 45 × 2 cm
Condition: good condition

Background information

Description of the work

In Family from 1960 Han Jansen brings together three human figures in a distinctly vertical composition. A standing woman dominates the foreground, with a male figure behind her and a smaller, seated child bottom right. The interrelation of their positions visually makes the three figures a compact group.

Although the human form remains clearly recognizable, the figures are strongly simplified and abstracted. Anatomical details and facial features have been reduced to elemental shapes and painterly indications. In particular, the man's face is built up from contrasting color planes in blue, orange, black, and white. For the woman and the child, the figurative composition is also primarily determined by color, contour, and surface treatment.

The palette is dominated by blues and turquoise tones, greens, yellows, and broken white, against warmer accents of red, orange, pink, and brown. The oil paint is visibly and variously applied, with short strokes, overpaintings, and locally a pronounced paint texture. The background is not developed as a naturalistic space, but forms a layered painterly field in which the figures are embedded.

Stylistically, the work lies between figuration and abstraction. The scene remains recognizable as a family, while perspective, anatomical detailing, and naturalistic color have been subordinated to flat composition, rhythm, texture, and color contrast. The exceptionally narrow and tall format of 108 × 43 cm reinforces the vertical arrangement and the monumental effect of the group of figures.

Biography of the artist

Han Jansen, full name Johannes Regnerus Jozef Jansen, was born in 1931 in Kloosterburen and died in 1994 in Nieuw-Loosdrecht. He was a Dutch visual artist and worked as a painter, graphic artist, draftsman, photographer, and sculptor. He was self-taught.

Jansen grew up in Groningen. The landscape of the North Netherlands and the Wadden Sea region played an important role in his oeuvre. In addition to paintings and drawings, he produced graphic works, including etchings and silkscreens.

His visual language evolved during his career from figurative and abstracting representations to further abstraction. In the 1970s he created landscapes that include farms and cows. In the early 1980s he also experimented with the landscape itself as an artistic medium. In his so-called wad paintings, pigment was applied to the water and dispersed by the tides. In his later painting, abstract works emerged in which paint splashes and misty textures play a role.