Koos van Bruggen

Jacobus Adriaan Rijkel (Koos) van Bruggen (1914 –1979 ) was a Dutch general practitioner, painter and sculptor.

 Van Bruggen was a son of a general practitioner in Diepenveen, and studied medicine and became a general practitioner himself in 1940. In the early 1950s he learned to draw and paint from Jan van der Zee and woodworking from one of his patients.

After 1968, when he had suffered a second heart attack, Van Bruggen focused entirely on being an artist. He made expressive paintings, scrolls (printed matter) and wooden sculptures, which Van Bruggen himself called poles.  In his paintings, pastels, gouaches and watercolours he showed the city and countryside of Groningen and the people in it; the influence of Ploeg artists Van der Zee, Hendrik Werkman and Job Hansen is visible in his work.