MAS and Jan Sanders

Yesterday I've been visiting the brand new MAS - Museum aan de Stroom in Antwerp (Belgium). The architecture and collection is amazing. On top of the museum you have a great view over the city of Antwerp and its port. The port of Antwerp is the second biggest port of Europe.

For cartoons about ports and sailors, I refer to the amazing work of Jan Sanders (Holland, 1919-2000).
I own a book "Les gars the la marine",(Glénat, 1980, ISBN 2-7234-0145-6), a French edition. There are also English (The man with the Can, with an introduction by Tonie and Valmai Holt), Dutch ('t Kan Verkeren, Een keuze uit het werk van Jan Sanders) and a Spanish (Humor a Bordo de Jan Sanders) edition.

"The man with the can" refers to the cartoon figure figuring in many of his cartoons, stirring in a pot of paint. This refers to the paint firm he was drawing a yearly calendar for.He drew 17 calendars and these brought him fame. Although Jan Sanders drew many cartoons about ships, ports, the sea and sailors, he confessed that he only made a 20km long boattrip once in his life...


Discover Jan Sanders:

"Hurry up boys, ... Home before  Christsmass"

Jan Sanders was an admirer of English cartoonists: Giles, Emmett, Searle...
.. and I think of WH Robinson too.

To complete this article, Jean-Marie sent me the covers of 3 other publications by Jan Sanders (French editions by Glénat):

1981

1983

1985

The drawing below was published in "Branle-bas de combat", but has nothing to see with the sailor or marine theme.

Learn more about Jan Sanders:


Cartoons and drawings by Jan Sanders
Jan Sanders biograhy (Dutch)
Jan Sanders website (Dutch)


Discover the new MAS museum - and some photos I took: 

great architecture!

entrance

on the roof

view from top on port of Antwerp

view on the river Schelde and toward the old port