bert feringa                                         painter

The Noord Brabants museum in Den Bosch has a small collection of portraits made by Jan Sluijters (1881-1957).  Sluijters liked  the beauty of women but was a also family man. With the rythm of a civil servant he painted at regular times "upstairs" in his studio at home and between his painting sessions came down to have a break with the family. In the late afternoon he went out to play cards with his friends and  punctually came home  for dinner.He often used his family menbers as a model. He made many paintings of his children. Well known is The birthday of Liesje (see above) . He made beautiful portraits of the two wives he had during his career. Although he made several landscapes and still lifes, women were his specialty. Sluijters painted them in all kinds and colours, often in the nude (see left). His fame as a painter and connoisseur of the female beauty was so great that  he was a invited to be member of the jury of the first Miss Holland contest in the Netherlands in 1929.