Jan de Boerartist • painter • watercolourist • draughtsmanHarlingen 1877-1946 Hoorn

'Painter of symbolic images, mushrooms and deep-sea flora'. This is how the work of the painter Jan de Boer is characterized in 1937. As the son of a merchant captain, De Boer would originally go to sail, but he opted for an artistic career. In 1892 he moved to Amsterdam, where he started working as a decoration and pottery painter and gradually developed as a free artist. Around 1907 his work consisted of heather and forest views and figures in a landscape. Between 1914 and 1916 he took a philosophical study. Then, from 1917 onwards, he painted images based on imagination, the realm of myths and mysticism.