The Artistic Journey of Jan Korthals
Born in Amsterdam, Jan Korthals was a Dutch painter who worked in an impressionistic style. His artistic education was shaped at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, where he studied under Hendricus IJkelenstam and Jos Rovers. His work was significantly influenced by his uncle, the painter Marie Henrie Mackenzie, and the artist George Hendrik Breitner. While his early professional life included roles as a clerk and a worker at an advertising agency, his true passion remained drawing and painting, often practiced in his evenings while studying for a bookkeeping diploma.
Korthals's repertoire included many cityscapes, particularly of Amsterdam and Paris. During the difficult years of the German occupation, he painted flower arrangements on cardboard and board to make a living, sometimes signing these works as Jean Leonie. His career saw a significant turning point through commissions for calendars and illustrations for various organizations, including the Senefelder Printing Works, Unilever, and the N.V. Nederlandsche Lloyd. His talent for capturing scenes led to prestigious opportunities, such as illustrating the 2000th anniversary of Paris and receiving a grant from the Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences to travel to Ceylon.
Travels and Landscapes
Korthals was a traveler who used his journeys to gather sketches and impressions for his oil paintings. He traveled through France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Germany, the former Yugoslavia, and England, often in a converted VW bus. His travels included trips to Switzerland, where he once painted a dam construction in the Maggia valley on a steep mountainside. These sketches served as the foundation for many of his later works, capturing the essence of the locations he visited, from the streets of Montmartre to the landscapes of Ceylon.
