Bronze sculpture

Height: 23,5 cm.

Executed in an edition of 4.

Provenance: Family of the artist

Biography Jan Engelchor

Jan Albert Engelchor (Amsterdam 1920 – Bussum 1976) was a painter and sculptor. He initially aspired to become a sailor but suffered an accident on board and eventually followed his own path. He attended the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, where he studied alongside artists such as Henk Slijper and Karel Appel. He refused to sign the Ariërverklaring (Aryan Declaration), which made the war years difficult for him.

In 1946, he was awarded the Johan Cohen Gosschalk Prize and spent three months working with Matisse in southern France. In 1947, he married sculptor Margot Heldring, whom he had met at the academy. They had two children, and he maintained his own studio, first on Amsteldijk and later next to his home in Huizen and later in Eemnes.

Engelchor received the Peter Tetar van Elven Prize for a classical work, The Prodigal Son, which now hangs in the museum of the same name in Gouda. This prize was intended to support young history painters. He created a large 3-by-4-meter painting of freedom fighter Simón Bolívar and his generals, which was first exhibited at the Stedelijk Museum and later moved to Venezuela.

Although he was formally trained as a painter, he taught himself sculpture and casting. Jan mainly created sculptures and paintings of animals and military figures. Together with his wife, he was frequently found at the riding school on Overtoom. In the beginning, his work was primarily realistic, but over time, it became increasingly abstract, leading him to discard much of his earlier work. He exhibited extensively at Galerie De Eendt, as well as at Siau and Santee Landweer in Amsterdam, and in the late 1960s, he also exhibited in New York.

In 1958, he created a modern sculpture for Coolsingel in Rotterdam, commissioned by Slavenburg Bank. His works have a futuristic quality due to their clean, precise forms. Around 1970, he divorced his wife, who later remarried and became known as Margot Hudig-Heldring. Drawings by Jan Engelchor and Margot Hudig are also part of the archives of the Royal Dutch Antiquarian Society (Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap). After Engelchor’s death, part of his work found its way to collectors through Peter Metzemaekers in Oirschot.