Jaap Schreurs Kunstschilder

Life and Work of Jaap Schreurs

Painter and father (1913-1983)

1942-1944

3.0 War and Marriage

Willem van Beekum

selfportrait

As the persecutions grew more grim, the situation became untenable for the studio group as well. Jaap's (mainly Jewish) friends fled to Paris and as the only one left he could no longer afford the rent. In addition, the ‘arbeitseinsatz’ (forced labor) threatened him, too, so he went into hiding together with his childhood friend Willem van Beekum. Willem was a typographer and was able to forge identity cards and food coupons. That was brave and stressful at the same time. Although they have lived through frightening hours, they were never caught.

Jaap's mother sleeping

29,5x21.3cm

pencil on paper 194?

During his time in a safehouse, Jaap got to know Eva Dekker. In their conversations she found in him an attentive listener regarding her damaged childhood. They started a relationship and married in 1944. Looking back in her final years, she again called him ‘her savior’.

In that same year their eldest daughter, Nelleke, was born.

Still life Blue Mussels oil on panel 1945

Nursing baby

15x20,5cm pencil on paper 1944

Dutch famine winter:"The Food Collectors"

oil on canvas 1944

Jaap's brother Piet, drowned

24,5x21,5cm pencil on paper 1943

Jaap's (half-)brother Piet was a gifted storyteller. During the blackout curfew, he accidentally fell into the water and drowned. Jaap did not shy away from the sight and came along to the police station to identify him.

Consequences of vitamin deficiency
Dutch famine winter 1944

17,3x20,8 cm pencil on paper

Head of child (Nelleke?) 19x26cm
pencil on paper 1945

portrait of a young man

oil on panel 30x38cm 194?

Understandably, little work was done in this period. Jaap had no money to buy materials and the young family’s circumstances during the Dutch famine or ‘hunger winter’ did not help either. In 1944, paintings could also be exchanged for food on a few occasions.