Although a prolific Dutch printmaker, the identity of a Dutch artist Jac de Beer is still unknown. 


All mentioning found in the internet (domicile, birth, death etc… are based)* on copy-pasted mistakes and false assumptions. The identity of real artist-printmaker Jac de Beer has yet to be found. (* usually stated as: born Dokkum 1888 - died 1946 Dokkum, Friesland)

Being a bread and butter printmaker with a generally uninteresting and not very artistic “oeuvre” it is also understandable he was never properly researched. Why bother ? On the other hand it is also intriguing: no records, articles, census, magazines, newspapers, gallery, family, memoirs or recollections were ever found connection a Jac de Beer with an artist-printmaker. At all. 

Read more about this printmaker in the biographies book accompanying these collections: my homework ….


To be ahead of any critic or comment: I know, agree and apologise. Caricatures like this today may and will be considered offensive to black people. Although it was of course never the intention of the artist, to be offensive. He just depicted the most popular  performing Broadway artist of the time: Al Jolson (= Asa Yoelson 1886-1950) singing Sonny Boy. 

            

It  happens also to be the most powerful (monochrome - black and white) and brilliant woodblock print by this obscured Dutch printmaker who just tried to make ends meet and whose legacy does not otherwise stood out  in artistic or creative quality. All IMHO of course

Over the years it was inevitable many Jac de Beer prints crossed my paths and ended up in archive and collection. The usual charity shop, flea market and car boor loot. Like in the production of his fellow printmaking labourer Jan Schipper (they were both productive but not among the most creative or artistically gifted) amidst the many uninteresting prints (rubbish) sometimes gems and pearls can be found. 

This is just a selection, most topographic subject were left out. Since actually he also depicted some Frisian landmarks (Leeuwarden, Franeker) and a bunch showing up (and is archived) in a Museum in Sneek, a Frisian background is still suspected.   

gerbrandcaspers@icloud.com