Jan Mankes - Row of trees - Sold

Jan Mankes was born on 15 August 1889 in Meppel as the son of Beint Mankes, a civil servant at the tax office and Jentje Hartsuiker. He went to the hbs in Meppel in 1902, but stopped when the family moved to Delft in 1904. During that period he worked as an apprentice to the glass painter JL Schouten and followed an evening course at the Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague. He started painting birds and nests in the dunes of The Hague and surroundings. From 1909 to 1915 Mankes lived with his parents in Het Meer, a hamlet located between Heerenveen and the villages of Benedenknijpe and Bovenknijpe. Here he further developed his love for nature and made many of his best works. One of his masterpieces is the painting of the Woudsterweg. Along this road, located opposite his parents' house, he walked to Oranjewoud every day.
In 1913 he met Anne Zernike, a theologian and the first female minister in the Netherlands, in Bovenknijpe. He married her in 1915, after which they lived in The Hague for a while. In September 1916 they moved to Eerbeek in Gelderland, because they thought that the wooded area would be good for Mankes, who was suffering from tuberculosis. During this period he also lived for five months in the Carpe Diem boarding house in Nunspeet. In 1918 their son Beint was born, named after Jan's father. Mankes was very ill and spent a lot of time in bed; when he felt a bit better he worked continuously. In 1920 he died of his illness, when he was 30 years old. He was buried in Eerbeek.
Mankes left behind an oeuvre of about 150, mainly small, paintings, about 100 drawings and about 50 prints. In more than half of his work, nature is the main subject. In addition, he made self-portraits, portraits (especially of his father, his mother and his wife), still lifes, landscapes and interiors. Mankes exhibited a lot during his life and was highly appreciated.
In the beginning Mankes painted mainly dark birds in dark shades, later also light-coloured, mainly white animals such as roosters and rabbits. The Hague art collector and cigar manufacturer Aloysius Pauwels was his patron and he often sent him, in addition to materials, special birds that he could paint.
His work is characterized by a certain silence. In 1923 Richard Roland Holst called Mankes Holland's most tranquil painter. This silence is caused by balanced compositions and subdued use of color, as well as a barely visible brushstroke.
His work was exhibited in the Scheringa Museum for Realism, among other places. The Mankes collection of that museum has been housed in the MORE museum since spring 2015, which is located in the (expanded and completely renovated) former town hall of Gorssel in Gelderland.