Painter in Essence

Painter in Essence presents paintings and drawings that Jan Roeland (NL, 1935-2016) created over fifty years of artistic practice, depicting everyday objects. These include a large number of works in which Roeland, balancing between strict abstraction and disarming humor, depicts plants, flowers, and animals. The focus on themes from nature ties in with a series of exhibitions in which Museum Kranenburgh focuses on nature as a living environment. Art historian and guest curator Melchior Jaspers selected some thirty works from private, corporate, and gallery collections. A number of these are being shown in a museum for the first time. The exhibition continues in the museum’s villa as an educational presentation entitled Deceptively Simple.

Jan Roeland

Self-taught Jan Roeland trained as a teacher but devoted his life to painting. In 1959, he settled in Amsterdam, where he continued to live and work until his death in 2016. He taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Enschede and at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam and exhibited at galleries in Amsterdam and The Hague. In 2017, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam dedicated a solo exhibition to his work. His work is included in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum, the Van Abbemuseum, the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, the Dordrechts Museum, and the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, as well as in private and corporate collections.