Kaay, Cornelis

Background: peasant-class family, 8 children
Education: primary school
Profession/occupation: bricklayer and paviour (stratenmaker)
Art form/medium:  painting in oils.
Start artwork: spontaneously after retirement.
Relevant info: he portrayed his parental home and serial idyllic pastoral scenes of the houses along the ditches in the Westfrisian region.
Exhibitions: Zondagsschilders, Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem 1965.
References: Bromet, Joop & Van der Endt, Nico; Nederlandse naïeve kunst, Venlo 1979, pp 56-62;
Van der Endt, Nico; Lexicon Nederlandse naïeve kunst van de twintigste eeuw / Lexicon of twentieth century Dutch naïve art, Venlo/Antwerpen, 1995, pp. 66-67.

At the age of 16 he became a mason and later a bricklayer. He passed his youth in the picturesque village of Nieuwe Niedorp, a typically Dutch village with ribbon building along a dead straight canal and many little bridges. He became one of the most remarkable naive painters of the Dutch rectilinear landscape. The ex-mason and ex-bricklayer kept a close eye on the details of buildings and pavement.

Cornelis Kaay
1905 Nieuwe Niedorp, The Netherlands - 1979 Spaarndam, The Netherlands