Jan Mankes
Jan Mankes (15 August 1889 – 23 April 1920) was a Dutch painter. He produced around 200 paintings, 100 drawings and 50 prints before dying of tuberculosis at the age of 30. His restrained, detailed work ranged from self-portraits to landscapes and studies of birds and animals.
Jan Mankes

Jan Mankes · own photo 2007-04-13 · Public domain
- Born
- Jan Mankes was born on 15 August 1889. · Meppel.
- Died
- Jan Mankes died on 23 April 1920. · Eerbeek.
- Nationality
- Kingdom of the Netherlands
- Occupation
- painter · printmaker
- Fields
- painting
- Education
- Royal Academy of Art
- Teachers
- Jan Schouten · Herman Veldhuis
- Known for
- Woman in front of her house · Row of trees
- Languages
- Dutch
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Documentary summary
Jan Mankes (15 August 1889 – 23 April 1920) was a Dutch painter. He produced around 200 paintings, 100 drawings and 50 prints before dying of tuberculosis at the age of 30. His restrained, detailed work ranged from self-portraits to landscapes and studies of birds and animals.
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Authority files
gnd · 10189408-9 · wikidata · Q2651452 · wikipedia · Jan Mankes
In this article
Biography
Biography
His work is now exhibited in his native Netherlands in the Museum Arnhem, Museum Belvédère and Museum MORE.
Jan Mankes studied at Royal Academy of Art. Training under Jan Schouten and Herman Veldhuis is recorded. The recorded working language is Dutch. The field of work recorded is painting. Places of work recorded in the authority are Delft, De Knipe and Eerbeek. Works named in the authority record are Woman in front of her house and Row of trees. Work by Jan Mankes is recorded in the collections of Museum Møhlmann, Museum Belvédère, Museum Arnhem, Museum MORE and The New Art Gallery Walsall.
Mankes had a reputation as an ascetic living in a kind of self-chosen isolation in De Knipe, Friesland, far from the heart of the country's culture. In reality he was well aware of what was going on, read the leading newspapers and magazines, and was supplied by friends with newspaper clippings and other material. In addition, he had lived in The Hague and (because of his tuberculosis) in Eerbeek, in Gelderland, but preferred to keep an "intimate distance". A progressive Protestant, in 1915 he married Anne Zernike, the country's first female minister with a doctoral degree. Zernike was a Mennonite; a drawing of her, made by Mankes in 1911, is in the collection of the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden. From 1909 onwards he was financially supported by A.A.M. Pauwels (1875–1952), a tobacco merchant and art collector from The Hague. Mankes' letters to Pauwels, in which he often thanks him for money and material sent to him, take up seven hundred pages (including annotations) and were published in 2012 by the Netherlands Institute for Art History; Pauwels' letters are not preserved.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
Explore 1889–1920
The full dated record · 3 entries
1889
Jan Mankes born at Meppel.
1912
Self-portrait by Jan Mankes, dated 1912, held by Fries Museum.
1920
Jan Mankes died at Eerbeek.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Jan Mankes was born at Meppel.
Birthplace
Jan Mankes died at Eerbeek.
Deathplace
Meppel.
Birth place
Eerbeek.
Death place
Style and technique
He is sometimes categorized as a symbolic realist, though Carel Peeters notes that the abstract qualities of Mankes's work remove him from both symbolism and realism. When working with oil paints he was able to bring a kind of transparency to the paint especially when he was working with white, which acquired a pearly lustre because of his soft brush strokes. In self-portraits, observers noted, this gave his white skin a rather sickly appearance. Mankes studied and then sketched his subjects (often birds and farm animals) "until he knew them by heart, and then painted them from memory". One of his favorite animals (he kept it in his room) was an owl, sent to him by his benefactor Pauwels. Mankes used a glazing technique, in which a large number of layers of paint on an opaque base "lend a fairytale-like quality to the owl".

Cover of: Frédérique Bruijel-van der Palm; Jan
Jan Mankes · Scan of original
Primary material
Documents and archives
authority file
- Gemeinsame Normdatei 10189408-9, Tentoonstelling Woudsterweg: de Friese Jaren van Jan Mankes (2007 : Heerenveen).
Unverified · Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q2651452: Jan Mankes
Unverified · Wikidata
reference work
- “Jan Mankes”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Clemens, Theo. The Pastor Bonus: Papers Read at the British-Dutch Colloquium at Utrecht, 18-21 September 2002. Brill. 11–56. 2003. 9789004131736.
- 2.Netherlands Institute for Art History. RKD Sources and Documents Series: Jan Mankes, een kunstenaarsleven in brieven 1910-1920. 2012.
- 3.Peeters, Carel. De intieme afstand van Jan Mankes. Vrij Nederland. 12 August 2013.
- 4.Dorhout, Pauline. The World According to Art: Jan Mankes: Big Owl on Screen (1913); Private collection. Rijksmuseum. 23 September 2012.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
authority file
Gemeinsame Normdatei 10189408-9, Tentoonstelling Woudsterweg: de Friese Jaren van Jan Mankes (2007 : Heerenveen).Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
Partially resolvedauthority record
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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