Piet van der Hem artwork • watercolour • drawing • for sale Street scene with newspaper and flower sellers

Piet van der Hem lived and worked in Amsterdam and around 1915 was one of the group of modern artists that also included Gestel and Sluijters. His preferred subject was scenes of cosmopolitan nightlife, and during his frequent travels to Paris, Rome, Madrid and Moscow he depicted ordinary urban scenes and entertainments at cabarets, dance palaces and music halls. While staying in Volendam and Edam from 1917 to 1919, Van der Hem became interested in coastal life, local fisherfolk and the fashionable tourists who visited their villages. Besides painting, he also worked as an illustrator and political cartoonist for the De Haagsche Post and De Haagsche Courant newspapers.