Klaas Pijlman - Oil on canvas “Making hay at dusk in Haarlemmermeer” – 1946 - Sold

• Klaas Pijlman (1917-2007) was a painter, sculptor, graphic artist, singer, poet, reciter and teacher of culture and drawing. He was born in Amsterdam on January 5, 1917 and died in Amsterdam on July 18, 2007. He was the second youngest son in a musical and artistic reformed family with nine children. His father was the conductor/composer/organist/music publisher and music teacher Fetze Pijlman, and his mother was Maria Johanna Stoffels, who came from a family of painters, draftsmen and designers. His oeuvre is estimated to include more than 10,000 drawings, watercolors, paintings and sculptures. An overview of his life and more than 600 images of his work can be found in ''Klaas Pijlman, een ongekend kunst' (2020 edition)'*

At the age of 16, Klaas takes an entrance exam at the Institute for Applied Arts Education in the Hobbemastraat near the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (the later Rijksacademie for Visual Arts). He also takes an entrance exam for the Amsterdam Conservatory. He wants to study singing and piano there. He is admitted to both courses - in 1933, at the age of sixteen - without meeting the required preliminary training but on the basis of his demonstrated talents. He chooses the art course, because it enables him to earn a living as a drawing teacher if necessary. He graduates in 1937 (MO-A, N IXa,) and in 1939 he obtains the MO-B certificate). In July 1940 he also obtains his MO certificate for manual skills.
After graduating, he drew many advertising brochures, letterheads for companies, church brochures, covers for sheet music, ex-librises, etc., and accepted commissions for drawing and painting portraits. In 1941, he worked for short periods as a substitute drawing teacher at various schools in Amsterdam. After that, this work became too dangerous for a young man because the occupying forces were looking for cheap labor that could be employed in Germany. In the meantime, he sang in his father's choir. There, in early 1943, he met his future wife, Gré van der Weijden, then 22 years old. They settled in the heart of Amsterdam at Marnixstraat 362, third floor. In the back room, Klaas created his first own studio. Their four children were also born there: Peter Ireen (1944), Mirjam (1947), Jeroen Klaas (1951) and Jolande Maria (1956). At the beginning of the war he still painted many landscapes in nature, which he later exchanged for food, and then still lifes at home.
In September 1950 he takes his first full-time appointment as a drawing teacher, at the Christian Lyceum in Sneek. He then starts working at the Christian Lyceum in Amersfoort in September 1952, until he is appointed at the Da Costa Kweekschool in Bloemendaal and the Gereformeerde Kweekschool in Amsterdam as of September 1957. He also teaches drawing and didactics at the Vormschool voor Kleuterleider, located on the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam. A few years later he becomes a full-time teacher of drawing and Culture at the aforementioned Gereformeerde Kweekschool, later the Christian Pedagogical Academy, and later still at the Pedagogical Academy Jan van Eyk in Amsterdam. He remains there until his retirement in 1982. According to himself, he did this work with heart and soul.
In the period after the war until his appointment as a lecturer at both of the aforementioned Pedagogical Academies, he received many commissions for illustrations. These initially came mainly from Protestant churches for their local newspapers and special meetings. He also drew illustrations for short stories in the weekly magazine De Spiegel. These were the preludes to a major commission to illustrate a Bible with no fewer than 250 drawings (see later). In these years, he published several children's books with Mulder & Zoon, known for, among other things, the Golden Books. On the internet, the children's books 'Adjes luchtreis' and 'Bij de Negerkoning' can still be found occasionally, He draws an Animal ABC book, provided with four-line poems by Clinge Doorenbos. The success of these illustrations resulted in more illustration work, including books by K. Norel (In en uit Siberië, Coasters varen uit, De Floodramp). The NCRV also approached him for drawings in the broadcasting magazine. In 1948-1949 he drew and wrote a series of 19 graphic novels/comic books under the pseudonym Claus, published by Jago in Haarlem.
All this work does not prevent him from drawing portraits of his wife and children, and also from finding time to make fantasy work with a strong compositional and stylistic slant. Plus still lifes of numerous objects that he collected, and finally, not to forget, numerous nude studies, sometimes from a model, often from memory. He experiments emphatically with various styles, without ever converting dogmatically to one style.
A completely different form of illustration is addressed in the many years-spanning assignment of the Graf- en Steenhouwerij Botterman en De Ruig on the Weteringschans in Amsterdam. In order to give buyers of a grave monument an idea of what a stone or larger monument will look like, Pijlman designs dozens of grave monuments, depicted in their future environment. They are watercolours with details in black pen on A5 format. His creations are undoubtedly still present at the Zorgvlied cemetery on the Amstel.
Between 1950 and 1960 he took private singing lessons for many years. As a bass-baritone he still sang in his father's choir, which was then called the 'Christelijk Gemengd koor Sweelinck'. Klaas sings as a soloist together with the sopranos Christina Deutekom and Jo Vincent and the alto Aafje Heijnis together with the choir led by his father in the Bachzaal and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Choral arrangements of psalms make father Fetze famous in Protestant circles. He prints and publishes them himself with his own publishing house 'De Harp'. The covers are designed by Klaas. Well-known are the strongly graphically designed blaring trumpets, angels and organ pipes. Klaas Pijlman's own musical sides are addressed during Christmas and Easter services when he sings and declaims as a soloist. He writes the texts himself, using existing and self-written poems. With musical and artistic students from the Kweekscholen he is then on the road during the weeks before the church holidays with singing, declamation and slides of religious works of art from art history and of himself. He continues these performances until the nineties. In addition, he sings in the church choir of the Agneskerk on the Haarlemmermeercircuit corner Amstelveenseweg. Later in life he becomes skilled in singing Gregorian compositions and sings many solo parts in them, until his voice starts to deteriorate at the age of 85 and he decides to stop. For his services as a singer in the church he receives a papal distinction in 2002.
In 1955, together with his colleague, friend and fellow student Wim van Amstel (also from Amsterdam, later a teacher at the Art Academy in Rotterdam), he received a grant to paint and draw in Paris for a month.
In the late fifties, Klaas Pijlman illustrated the Bible in story and image written by Miss Ingwersen for the Bible Kiosk Association in Amsterdam. He had already provided Mrs Ingwersen's small children's Bible with a few illustrations. He drew and painted 250 watercolours and black-and-white drawings for this sturdy Bible for adults. The Bible was a great success for the publisher and was reprinted numerous times (at least 30, published in 2012!). It was also published in many languages and countries, including Romania, Hungary, Canada (...) and even China, always with the same illustrations by Klaas Pijlman. He knew nothing about it. According to the current publisher, the original pen drawings and (originally very) colourful watercolours have been housed in the religious library of the Free University of Amsterdam, together with the archive of the Bible Kiosk Association. He receives another commission to illustrate a bible, the Frisian bible written by U. van Houten, 'De Hillige Histoarje, forteld foar it Fryske Folk', published by Wever in Franeker. He made 14 pen drawings for this, printed in page format, divided over two hefty volumes. This bible was later translated into Dutch and republished with the same illustrations.
In the summer of 1958, Klaas leaves for the Dolomites in Italy for a month, thanks to -again- a grant, and works there from Alba di Canazei. He also makes a large fresco on the facade of the pension where he is staying, entirely with the old techniques that he had learned at the academy. He also records his visit to Venice in -combined- techniques. Once back home, full of impressions, he paints several mountain landscapes (Pordoi, Sella, Marmolada) again in oil paint.