View on the Sint-Jansberg in Plasmolen

Jan Sleeboom (1917-1963) painted, watercoloured, drew, etched (also mosaics) and also wrote poetry. He mainly worked in Delfzijl, Luxembourg and the Eiffel. But also Zeeland, Brittany, Schiermonnikoog and Nijmegen and the surrounding landscape are locations of which one can find work from his hand.

Fixed subjects are fishermen, boats, the Delta Works, street scenes, houses and buildings. His early work showed quite a lot of influence from Chris le Roy, but later he found his own form.

In and through his work, he overcame the fear of death which was to torment him all his life and which drove him, a strong spirit in an ailing body, into a mad pursuit of quantity, which did not always benefit the quality of his work. His house was full of paintings. When he sold, he missed the work, and when he did not sell, it annoyed him.

Jan Sleeboom was born in Delfzijl and died at the age of 45 in Tilburg as a result of a car accident. Besides his work as a teacher in Nijmegen, he produced maniacal and many-sided artistic works in his relatively short life.