The Alkmaar painter Dirk Oudes was self-taught and only started a career as an artist at the age of 35 (1930). His funny, colourful panels usually have the North Holland landscape as their subject: the farms, the village with the church, chickens and sheep, bridges, ditches and trees. He captured this world in a simple and uninhibited style, which cannot actually be classified under any art movement. The painter characterizes his work as an attentive viewer of the world around him, which can be seen in the way in which he depicts people, animals and nature. and his attention to detail. Oudes had his first exhibition in 1937, and in 1955 he took part in the lustrum exhibition of De Keerkring in the Stedelijk Museum, together with Benner, Corneille and Sluijters, among others.