Jannes de Vries

Jannes de Vries was born in Meppel, Drenthe. Despite his parents' objections, Jannes de Vries enrolled in the Normal School for Drawing Teachers in Amsterdam in 1920. He obtained his diploma in hand and line drawing and left for Paris, the 'Mecca of art'. Jannes then travelled to Rome, Florence and North Africa.

Jannes de Vries became a member of De Ploeg in 1924 and chairman in 1926. Jannes de Vries was an artist who held a special position within De Ploeg. In 1983 he was awarded honorary membership of De Ploeg.
In 1923 Jannes de Vries travelled via Clermont-Ferrand to Florence and Rome. The expensive life in Rome made him move to the artists' village Anticoli Corrado, where he met artists from other parts of Europe. From here he made a trip to Lipari, where he was struck by the rich colour schemes. The paintings that were created here are among the best of his oeuvre. The painting 'Vulcano' (oil on paper, 1924) shows the change in his way of working. He wrote about this (Siersma, 2004, 18): “I increasingly experience that I have to hold on to a total movement image and let this ‘seen’ grow within me. In this way my work area shifts from outside to inside, although I still come home with mountains of notes.” In 1970, Jannes de Vries was awarded the Cultural Prize of the province of Groningen. His works are in various private collections and can be seen in, among others, the Groninger Museum.