Jan Cremer - Tulips - silkscreen 156/200, signed r.o.

Jan Cremer was educated at the art academies of Arnhem and The Hague, where he lived in the Annastraat. His literature and visual art show striking similarities. Both focus on breaking away from traditional aesthetics and age-old cultural baggage, as the following quotes illustrate: “I don't read, I am read.” "Rembrandt? Who is that? I don't know anything about cyclists." Both quotes reveal his ability to shock or at least attract attention and sell himself as a daredevil with demonstrable talent (cf. James Dean): experiencing culture as a burden fits into this picture. Especially I Jan Cremer, but also his 'peinture barbarism', comparable to that of Karel Appel, shocked. Actions such as hanging a card of fl 1,000,000,- on a painting (he was only 18 at the time) and driving past the book ball while honking loudly have made him the enfant terrible of Dutch visual arts and literature. The literary relevance of Cremer's work is especially embodied in Ik Jan Cremer. Central to this is the liberation of the ideals of the 50s. It is a precursor to the free sex and wild 60s. This explains why Cremer was also read outside the Netherlands. Questions were asked about the book in the House of Representatives, it was called fascist and football hooligans were accused of "Jan Cremerism". Cremer himself worked hard on this, because he saw the commercial possibilities. When a diligent policeman in Hengelo confiscated copies of Ik Jan Cremer in early 1964, expressions of support from concerned parents appeared in several newspapers. They all turned out to have been written by Jan Cremer. Cremer is parodied by Remco Campert in his novella Tjeempie! or Liesje in luiletterland as the Predator, as one of the modern writers who goes to visit Liesje. In it, Cremer is described as an aggressive bully for whom everyone crawls into the dust. He knows that it is about "munnie in the pokkut and a bebie in bed", and therefore has a golden helicopter instead of a car. In 1999 the collection of stories De Venus van Montparnasse was published, a collection of twelve literary reports from Cremer's journalistic repertoire. On November 30, 2000, he was appointed Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion.