From:'Daàg - The Canadian Army in Holland' (1945).
Jan Nieuwenhuys was a Dutch cartoonist, known for a 1945 cartoon booklet about the Canadian liberators of the Netherlands during World War II. He should not be confused with the Amsterdam experimental painter Jan Nieuwenhuijs (1922-1986).
Early life
Jan Willem Nieuwenhuys was born in 1924 in Shanghai, China, where his father worked for the Java-China Packet Line. Nieuwenhuys spent his childhood in the former Dutch East Indies (nowadays Indonesia). In the 1930s, he moved with his mother and sister to Hilversum in the Netherlands, where attended high school at the Nieuwe Lyceum. Subsequently, he went to The Hague to study at the Royal Academy of Art, but World War II forced him to discontinue his studies prematurely.
Word War II
During World War II, Nieuwenhuys was involved in various resistance activities, presumably with former school mates from the Nieuwe Lyceum. However, little specifics of their activities are known. The resistance group's logo consisted of a black hand with a white index finger. In 1944, Nieuwenhuys created a cartoon of his group featuring the following names: H. v. Lindert, B. Wolf, W.(A.) Meurer, R. Meurer, H. Steenstra and J. Nieuwenhuys. After the war, Wolf, Steenstra and Nieuwenhuys received the Resistance Commemoration Cross.
The Maple Leaf Club, with cartoons of Jan Nieuwenhuys on the wall. (Picture: Collection Dryden).
Maple Leaf Club
After the complete Liberation of the Netherlands on 8 May 1945, the Canadian Army moved into the Hilversum library at 55 's-Gravelandseweg, which for the occasion was renamed "YMCA The Maple Leaf Club". Jan Nieuwenhuys joined the YMCA staff as a cartoonist and became good friends with the commanding officer, Major Murray Dryden. At the Maple Leaf Club, Nieuwenhuys decorated the walls with his cartoons of Allied soldiers. At the upcoming farewell of the Canadian soldiers at the end of 1945, the organization decided to compile a collection of his cartoons entitled 'Daag - The Canadian Army in Holland'. It was published as a New Year's gift by advertising agency Delamar in Amsterdam, just in time for the departing Canadians to purchase. As the story goes, Nieuwenhuys got along well with the Canadian recruits, and accompanied them to the German barracks in Oldenburg, and even to Canada.
'Hier en Daarginds' (1948).
Indonesia
In 1948, during the Indonesian National Revolution in the former Dutch East Indies, Nieuwenhuys published another collection of cartoons for the Dutch Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL). This booklet was published under the title 'Hier en Daarginds' by the healthcare organization NIWIN, and told the story of a soldier on the islands of the Dutch colony during the Indonesian Revolution.
Later years and death
For the rest of his professional life, Jan Nieuwenhuys worked as an artist for an advertising agency. He died in his hometown of Hilversum in 1987, at the age of 62. In early 2025, the Erfgoedhuis Hilversum, located in the former Maple Leaf Club location at 55 's-Gravelandseweg, hosted an exhibition of Jan Nieuwenhuys cartoons .
Self-portrait.