Django Reinhardt (2009) Painting by Jaap Van Der Wijk

My biological father was a Dutch neurosurgeon with Indonesian, Spanish and Portuguese (Jewish) blood. His family lived in Indonesia from the 1730's until 1950. My mother was also Jewish; her family came from Amsterdam. My mother and father met when he studied medical science in Holland, and she worked as a hospital nurse.
I left home when I was 14 years old. I travelled through Europe, lived in Germany and Italy, and ended up in Paris, where I copied my first Modiglianis and sold them at the Boulevard Saint-Germain, for an equivalent of 70 euros. Selling one painting per day was enough for me to live a "luxurious" life.
In the early 1970s I studied political science at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. After that I lived in South Africa and Northern Ireland for a couple of years.
Then I became a ship's chef on tall ships, large sailing vessels with about 75 passengers on board, sailing the Mediterranean Sea, the Carribean, etc.
From 1976 to 1984 I worked and lived in Nice. From 1986 till 1996 I lived and worked in Paris. I translated 76 books, serious non-fiction literature, like biographies, and wrote several books myself, like an encyclopedia of the sea and all its vessels, a dictionary of legal terms, a dictionary of football jargon, a dictionary of Wallstreet lingo, and hundreds of articles about dogs in general and the Labrador Retriever.

In 2005 I returned to Nice, just to visit, and in 2007 I loaded my little van, said goodbye to my friends in Amsterdam, to return to the south of France for ever.
I love to live here. I must admit that I rather wouldn't work, and just enjoy life, but the bills have to be paid, so that's why I picked up painting again. I don't need much money, so when I sell one or two paintings every month or so, I'm a happy man.

• Nationality: NETHERLANDS
• Date of birth : 1951
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary Dutch Artists