Jan Begeer

Graphic designer and teacher Jan Begeer (1921-2002) is best known as a senior lecturer in the Graphic Design department at the St. Joost Academy in Breda. He taught there from 1958 and stopped when he retired in 1986.

Jan Begeer was a charismatic teacher with a great awareness of the role that the graphic designer had to fulfill in society. The designer had to base his designs on a clear analysis of the assignment. He realized better than anyone that the practice of the graphic designer had to be preceded by a learning situation. Not so much to be able to experiment endlessly or to find your own ‘face’, but to be able to speak the language of graphic design.

Jan Begeer was also distant and closed and hardly ever talked about his own work, much less showed it as an example of how it should be done. For the first time it can now be seen what special graphic designs he made. In his versatile oeuvre we find brilliant moments, posters for a Frank Lloyd Wright exhibition, for the Museum Prinsenhof and an anti-war print for Van Gennep publishers, but also many gems such as New Year’s cards and brochures for the shop around the corner.