Jan Wolkers

Dutch sculptor and writer (1925–2007)

Jan Wolkers is remembered for work the next generation could not ignore.

The record lists Jan Wolkers as Dutch sculptor and writer (1925–2007).

Jan Wolkers was born at Oegstgeest in 1925. His recorded nationality is Netherlands.

Twentieth-century art was international, heavily theorised and increasingly conceptual, with the market growing alongside it.

He worked as television presenter, playwright and writer.

Among his best-known works are Vredesmonument, Watersnoodmonument Kruiningen and Without title. A painting outlives the argument about it, which is the only durable form of an artistic reputation.

Recognition followed: Constantijn Huygens Prize (1982) and Prose prize of the City of Amsterdam (1963).

That the work was made in Netherlands shaped it: artistic traditions, academies and the galleries that decide what is seen have never been evenly distributed.

Jan Wolkers died in 2007, aged 82. The work remains, hanging in collections that outlived both the artist and the market that first priced it.

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