Jan Dingemans            -           1921 – 2001

Born Breda, Holland 

STUDIED:

1943 – 45 Tilburg Academy (Teacher’s Diploma) 

1946   Opsomer School, Antwerp

SUMMARY BIOGRAPHY:

1948: settled in Sa. Lived for some time in Johannesburg, where he acquired a popular following, mainly based on his paintings of African figure-groups. Subsequently moved to the Cape.

EXHIBITIONS:

Group exhibs in Holland. 1956: First Quad of SA Art. 1960: Second Quad of SA Art; first one-man exhib, Jhb. 1966: Rep Fest Exhib, Pretoria.

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS:

Hester Rupert Art Museum, GR; Univ of Wits Gals; Rockefeller Museum,New York.

Jan Dingemans presents two personalities in his painting – the one is exploratory, seeking new forms in familiar still-life and nude subject matter; the other , better-known, image is popular and manneristic. In works of the latter order the artist concentrates on only-slightly-varying compositions of African tribal figures, in which he compromises with contemporary idioms by providing an amorphous, rainbow-coloured,abstract background, upon which he superimposes the linear, stylized groups of blanketed human subjects. Such paintings are much sought after by South African and visiting collectors, who approve of the African content and the not-too-blatant representationalism of style; they are, however, neither African in spirit nor contemporary in realization and they contrast sharply with his less-commercial,more considered compositions.