Jaap Schreurs Kunstschilder

Life and work of Jaap Schreurs (1913-1983)

Painter and father

6.0 Life and work - a second marriage

With his second marriage, Jaap changed his home address in Utrecht. However, after the long years of dreaming of happiness, it now turned out that both experienced an insufficient match between their lifestyles.

Four years later, they decided to have separate home addresses. This revised setup was sealed with a heartfelt mutual commitment that they would continue to support each other in their work and development.

After the lively boardinghouse and the subsequent pangs of love, Jaap now lived alone. For the first time since the studio period in The Hague, he had all the time in the world for his work again. Jaap lived without luxury. He liked to make time for others with a cup of good coffee and a pipe of tobacco. Paula also liked to visit him during her lunch break from work.

Jaap was affected by the reports about napalm bombs in the Vietnam War as well as (caused by ill medical treatment) birthdefects in babies (in the Netherlands and Belgium known as Softenon babies). Several of Jaap’s works testify to their mutilating impact.

Softenon (Thalidomide) baby ± 1975

pencil on paper 29x21 cm

Softenon (Thalidomide) family with chessboard

± 1975 ballpoint on paper

16 x16,5 cm

From 1973, Jaap, together with Nelleke, developed his own etching technique. This method implies a different approach to expression than applying paint to the canvas with a brush,
by hand. Technically speaking, one has more distance to the final image: the use of print calls for a firmer emotion, while the final result will only become apparent (surprise!) after the process of drawing, eroding and printing is complete.
Although his themes continued to radiate the same emotional involvement as before, Jaap worked with great zeal and for quite some time via this more indirect route. In this way, a whole new ‘production line’ for his expression was born in these years.

In the same period, Jaap traveled with Nelleke to Paris. There, at the sight of the sunny impressionists, he wondered why he ‘should’ work with heavy colors and heavy themes all the time, and sighed that he longed for that sunny yellow. In the years that followed, finding and introducing this color into his work became a true, emotional quest for him.

Boy without arm, etching,

after 1977

As an autodidact, Jaap developed his own etching techniques.

Etching- Street singer

15,5 x22,7 cm

Etching- Woman with hat

With closed eyes

Three heads etching 15x10 cm

These were also the years of the anti-nuclear bomb protest marches and the demonstrations against the Vietnam War. His etchings were Jaap’s way of protesting.

He looked with amazement and admiration at the work of Gross Arnold, who managed to bring so much color to his etchings. Again, Jaap attempted to develop this technique himself.

In addition to the etchings, very large, emotionally charged paintings were also created during this period. These have been published elsewhere.