Untitled

About this artwork.

This tile mosaic was set on a recessed wall to the right of the main entrance of the Noorderpoortcollege. The composition stretches across a length of 9.50 metres and a height of 2.30 metres and is composed of geometric shapes in the five basic colours of black, white, red, blue and yellow. The background is grey.
 
 The interior contains a decorative glass wall, also created by Jan van der Zee. The school building, which was designed in 1948-1956 by the architect of municipal works J.H.M. Wilhelm, is now a municipal monument, partly due to the addition of monumental pieces of art.
 
 The tile mosaic was one of the many monumental commissions Jan van der Zee created during his lifetime. In 1950 he was awarded his first commission for monumental work: a mural in the stairwell of the Theo Thijssenschool. Once his name was established in this area, Van der Zee was awarded many commissions from the national government under the percentage scheme. This scheme required that one or one and a half percent of the entire building budget for government buildings had to be used to beautify the buildings. The influx of monumental commissions that the artist received was also due to the fact that, after the war, he had been teaching future architects and structural engineers for several years. Van der Zee's vision for the integration of visual art in architecture was widely appreciated, and when visual art commissions were available, his former pupils did not seem to have forgotten him.
 
 Jan van der Zee was a versatile artist. In addition to paintings, watercolours, lithographs, drawings, woodcuts and linocuts, he made sculptures and engaged in all kinds of applied arts. He developed his preference for abstraction at an early age, in which De Stijl artist Bart van der Leck, whom he met during his service in 1917, played a key role. 
 
In the heyday years of the De Ploeg artists' circle, Jan van der Zee was frequently in the company of this most abstract of artists.
 
In 1965, Jan van der Zee was awarded the Groningen Cultural Prize.

Facts & Figures.

• Design
  Jan van der Zee

• District
  Stadspark

• Year of creation
  1960

• Art type
  Art in / on a building, Mosaic

• Dimensions
  h 2,30 x b 9,50 m