Jan Kruis was a Dutch comics artist, illustrator, writer, and painter best known for creating the family strip Jan, Jans en de Kinderen, internationally known as Jack, Jacky and the Juniors. His career also included advertising, magazine illustration, portraiture, other comic series, and work for charitable causes.
Background
Jan Kruis was born in Rotterdam on June 8, 1933, and grew up in the city's working-class Bloemhof district. His father, Gerrit Kruis, worked as a carpenter for the Rotterdam port authority. Kruis began drawing comics during childhood and received early instruction from the cartoonist Wim Meuldijk, who taught him practical techniques for making comic stories.
His early artistic development took place in postwar Rotterdam, a major Dutch port and industrial city whose commercial life provided opportunities for illustrators and advertising artists. The city's popular press, publishing, and advertising industries formed the professional environment in which Kruis began to establish himself.
Education
Kruis studied at the Rotterdam Academy of Fine Arts from 1950, receiving training connected with illustration, drawing, and advertising. The academy belonged to Rotterdam's long-standing tradition of practical art education and prepared students for work in applied as well as autonomous visual arts.
During his studies he published Prins Freddie in the Rotterdam newspaper De Havenloods. After completing his training, he entered advertising and illustration before developing a sustained career in comics, magazine work, and painting.
Career
Kruis began his professional career in the early 1950s with the newspaper De Havenloods, where he published Prins Freddie. After completing his art education, he worked in advertising at Nijgh & Van Ditmar in 1954 and at Van Maanen from 1958. His advertising work included campaigns for companies such as Shell and Niemeyer, while his broader illustration practice extended to magazines, novels, advertisements, and record covers.
From 1959 to 1963 he contributed comics and illustrations to Olidin, a youth magazine issued by Shell. He created Tommy, Stientje, and Gertje for the magazine and supplied stories for Baldino, drawn by his school friend Jan van der Voo. He also worked in the circle of Marten Toonder, the leading Dutch comics pioneer, although their planned strip Student Tijloos was not published at the time.
Kruis drew the gag strip Gregor for Tintin in 1965 and 1966. In 1969 he took over Sjors en Sjimmie from Frans Piët, modernized the series, and produced two complete adventures before Jan Steeman continued the strip. These projects established him as a versatile comics maker capable of working in both short gag formats and longer adventure narratives.
Kruis's most successful creation was Jan, Jans en de Kinderen, which first appeared in the women's magazine Libelle on December 12, 1970. The one-page family strip portrayed the everyday life of the fictional Tromp family and their pets, drawing on recognizable features of Dutch domestic life. It became closely associated with Libelle and was published in albums and translations, while characters and expressions from the series entered Dutch popular culture.
He continued drawing the series for almost three decades. In 1999 he retired from regular production and transferred the continuing work to Studio Jan Kruis, a group of artists who maintained the strip. In later years he concentrated on illustration, portrait painting, adaptations of literary works, and projects connected with the Leprastichting, for which he served as an ambassador. His work was also preserved in a major collection of original comic pages, drawings, and illustrations acquired by the Allard Pierson.
Achievements
Kruis created Jan, Jans en de Kinderen, a long-running one-page family comic strip that became one of the best-known Dutch comic series and was published in Libelle from 1970.
He modernized the established Sjors en Sjimmie series and produced two complete adventures, including Raadsels op Schiermeeuwenoog and De ring van Schiermeeuwenoog.
His work extended beyond comics into advertising illustration, magazine and book illustration, record-cover design, portrait painting, and literary adaptation.
As an ambassador for the Leprastichting, he made the Jan, Jans en de Kinderen characters available for charitable projects and created work connected with the foundation's campaigns.
(A gag comic created by Kruis that appeared in Tintin duri...)
1965
Views
Kruis's work emphasized the comic possibilities of ordinary domestic life. In Jan, Jans en de Kinderen he treated family routines, generational differences, pets, and changing social habits as material for humor rather than as grand adventure. His approach helped make everyday Dutch experience a central subject of a widely circulated comic strip.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Marten Toonder described Kruis as a versatile artist and praised his ability to create distinctive characters and atmosphere in comic work. Toonder also wrote the foreword to a biography of Kruis.
Interests
Portrait painting, literary adaptation, charitable work, and the cultural tradition of Sint Pannekoek.
Writers
Leo Tolstoy
Artists
Marten Toonder
Connections
Kruis married Els Kruis-van Zanden in 1958. They had two daughters, Leontine and Andrea; Andrea Kruis later became a comics artist. His family life provided material for aspects of Jan, Jans en de Kinderen, whose fictional household resembles elements of the artist's own domestic experience.
Wife:
Els Kruis-van Zanden
Kruis's wife; they married in 1958.
Daughter:
Leontine Kruis
Daughter:
Andrea Kruis
She followed her father into comics and became a comics artist.
References
Allard Pierson: Jan Kruis Collection
Documents Kruis's career, his training as an illustrator, the origins and popularity of Jan, Jans en de Kinderen, his retirement in 1999, and the acquisition of his original pages, drawings, and illustrations.
2022
Jan Kruis — Streekarchief Eiland IJsselmonde
Provides biographical information on Kruis's Rotterdam childhood, education, advertising career, early comics, major awards, retirement, and later work.
2018
Jan Kruis — Jan Kruis Museum
Presents an overview of Kruis's comic strips, applied art, illustrations, portrait paintings, and broader artistic career.
Jan Kruis — DBNL
Provides bibliographic information about Jan Kruis and records his illustrations in Dutch books and periodicals.
