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
Hofmann, Ludwig von (Darmstadt 17-08-1861 – 23-08-1945 Berlin)
Painter, designer, graphic and printmaker. Son of Prussian statesman Karl von Hofmann (1827-1910) and Cora Kekulé von Stradonitz (1835–1897. His father served as Minister-president of the Grand Duchy of Hesse from 1872 to 1876 and was briefly Trade Minister in the cabinet of Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898. Their children:
• Sophie (b. 1860) ∞ zoologist Justus Carriere (1854-1893)
• Ludwig (1861–1945) ∞ Eleonore Kekulé von Stradonitz (b. 1876)
• Heinrich (1863–1921), “Generalleutnant” ∞ Freiin Asta von Grüter-Diepenbroik (1875–1940)
• Maria (b. 1865) ∞ Justus Thiersch (1859–1937), “Bezirksarzt”, son of surgeon Carl Thiersch (1822-1895)
• Cornelie (b. 1866) ∞ Max von Kaisenberg (1862–1916), “Oberstleutnant”.
He worked in a combination of the Art Nouveau and Symbolist styles. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics.
Began his studies in 1883 at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, then studied with Ferdinand Keller (1842-1922) at the Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe. In 1889, he attended the Académie Julian in Paris, where he came under the influence of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) and Paul-Albert Besnard (1849-1934).
After 1890, he was a freelance painter in Berlin. From 1894 to 1900, he travelled extensively and spent a great deal of his time at his villa in Fiesole. His appreciation of antiquity and attraction to the idea of Arcadia permeates much of his work. After 1895, he was a regular contributor of illustrations for the Art Nouveau magazine Pan. In 1896, he became a member of the Berlin Secession and he was married in 1899. He was also a member of the Deutscher Künstlerbund
In 1903, he was appointed a Professor at the Weimar Saxon Grand Ducal Art School, where he became a member of the avant-garde literary and artistic group centred around Harry Graf Kessler (1868-1937). Jean Arp (1886-1936) and Ivo Hauptmann (1886-1973) were among his students. In 1916, he was named a Professor at the Academy in Dresden, where he remained until 1931. He also provided illustrations for a new translation of the Odyssey by philosopher Leopold Ziegler (1881-1958) and works by Gerhart Hauptmann (1882-1946) Ivo’s father.
His overall production slackened in the 1930s and, in 1937, some of his works were labeled as "degenerate art". He retired to Pillnitz, near Dresden, where he died in 1945. His remaining works were almost confiscated by the Russians after the war, but his widow managed to save them.
See: Hauptmann, Ivo