(2008)
Nanno de Groot (1913-1963).
Nanno de Groot died quite young, at 50, after only a year of good health in which to enjoy his new house at 507 Commercial Street, designed by his wife, Pat de Groot. He was born in the Netherlands and began painting in 1937 when he was stationed with a shipping company in Bali. After serving in the Dutch merchant marine during World War II, de Groot moved to New York to become a full-time artist. He first came to Provincetown in 1956, renting Fritz Bultman’s studio on Miller Hill Road. Nanno and Pat were wed in 1958. (His previous wife, Elise Asher, later married Stanley Kunitz.) Pat de Groot’s anthropomorphic marble headstone for her husband is the most distinctive grave marker in the cemetery. It was her first sculpture. “Nanno needed a gravestone,” she told me. “There was nothing out there.” Conrad Malicoat lent her tools, like a three-pound hammer, and built a stand. “I started chiseling,” she said, working from her own drawings.
¶ Last updated on 17 June 2017.
Provincetown’s Historic Cemeteries and Memorials, Key O-62, Page 16.