Jan Nieuwenhuys is born in 1922 in Amsterdam. In the early war years he visits the Rijksacademie van Beeldende Kunsten. Initially, he paints in a naturalistic style, but soon he leaves this path. In 1948 he is – together with his brother Constant – one of the founders of the Experimental Group in Holland. At the end of 1948 he joins the international Cobra movement, but leaves the group already in the summer of 1949.
Around this time, Nieuwenhuys is experimenting with surreal animal figures, half human, half fish, figures that look akin to the Cobra beings, which are inspired by children’s drawings. Yet there is a remarkable difference. The visionary world of Nieuwenhuys, packed with people, fish, boats and burly cyclopes, betrays the influence of Joan Miró and surrealism rather than that of Cobra.
Nieuwenhuys’ style of painting changes in the 1950s. Against a background of wildly painted underwater colours, he places large magical figures with heavy contours, strongly reminiscent of non-Western and prehistoric art.
Around 1960, he becomes more influenced by lyrical abstraction and the figuration makes way for large phantoms in drawn-out fairy-tale colour spots. In these works, too, the same wondrous amalgamation of surrealism, Cobra and lyrical abstraction can be seen, that has become characteristic of his entire oeuvre.
Nieuwenhuys dies in 1986.
