Jan Schoonhoven

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Jan Schoonhoven, portrait by Lothar Wolleh
Relief, Max Havelaarweg in Rotterdam-Hoogvliet

Jan (Johannes Jacobus) Schoonhoven (born June 26, 1914 in Delft ; † July 31, 1994 ibid) was a Dutch artist originally from the Informel , later one of his own art movements with points of contact with Concrete Art .

biography

Schoonhoven completed his training (1930 to 1934) as a drawing teacher at the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten of The Hague (Netherlands) and worked from 1946 to 1979 as a post office clerk in The Hague. He was artistically active in the evenings and on the weekends off.

He was a co-founder of the Nederlandse Informele Groep (Dutch Informal Group, 1959), which consisted of the five artists Armando , Kees van Bohemen, Jan Henderikse , Henk Peeters and Schoonhoven himself. After one year, in 1960, it was transferred to the group nul (zero, OREZ). The name refers to the German artist group ZERO and to the zero point from which a new artistic beginning should start. She set herself apart from the CoBrA group and strived for an objective art that is stripped of all emotional value and in which the presence of the artist as a person is obliterated: the aim is to establish reality as art in an impersonal way.

Schoonhoven was not a member of the Düsseldorf group ZERO by Mack , Piene and Uecker , but felt connected to their artistic departure and occasionally took part in joint exhibitions. In 1965 Schoonhoven understood> Zero <(like> Nul <as a Dutch synonym) as a collective term for related European art movements including his own: Zero does not refer to geometry. That may already be clear in and of itself, but it can certainly be shown by comparing zero products with essentially geometric things. Of course, geometry plays a role in Zero art, but not the most important one. Zero does not want to offer a geometric construction, but uses the geometry to explain a point of view. The geometrical aspect of Zero arises from the element of repetition, from the rows. This order arises from the need to avoid preferences. (A) preference for certain points and points in the work of art is missing; this is essential to Zero and necessary to convey isolated reality. The geometric side of Zero Art is therefore tailored to the utmost simplicity, an organization of very complicated forms, a reality derived from reality.

Schoonhoven was awarded the second prize at the São Paulo Biennale in 1967 and was represented at documenta 4 (1968) and 6 (1977) in Kassel .

Jan Schoonhoven died in July 1994.

plant

At the beginning of his career, Schoonhoven mainly made abstract drawings and watercolors . From 1955 he created monochrome white reliefs. Jan Schoonhoven made his works of art out of corrugated cardboard, paper mache and toilet paper rolls on a triplex base. The works were created according to geometric principles and were given meaningless names. An example of this is the white textured relief R62-1 from 1962 . From 1978 onwards many drawings were made: Schoonhoven drew with lines, dots and hatching, sometimes expressively, almost calligraphic , ink and brush drawings.

An important field of activity was the reflection of light on white surfaces. The relief-like elevations and depressions with their play of light and shadow become an active part of his works of art.

Schoonhoven's works have been shown in many exhibitions in the Netherlands and abroad.

Probably the most famous works of Schoonhagen, his grid-shaped reliefs made of cardboard, paper mache and white wall paint from the 1960s and early 1970s, were traded for the equivalent of around 2,500 to 8,000 euros during the period of creation, depending on their size and aesthetic appearance (e.g. "R73 -18 ", 60 × 50 cm, 1974 at d. + C. Mueller-roth, Stuttgart: DM 5,600, -).

Today, similar reliefs of this size fetch around 200,000 euros at auctions (e.g. "R72-19", 53 × 43 cm, 2017 auction at Phillips, London: GBP 197,000); larger formats around 500,000 to 600,000 euros (e.g. "R72-73-M14", 84 × 124 cm, first at Ketterer in Munich and last auction in 2018 at Phillips: GBP 441,000 and "R73-1", 60 × 186 cm, auction 2015 at Christie's, London: EUR 541,500).

Works in public collections

Belgium

Germany

Finland

  • Kiasma - Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki

France

Canada

Netherlands

Poland

Switzerland

United Kingdom (Dutch and German)

literature

  • Jan J. Schoonhoven 1914-1994. Reliefs and drawings 1941-1991 . Exhibition catalog Situation Kunst (for Max Imdahl), art collections of the Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum 2015, ISBN 978-3-941778-09-2 .
  • Juliane Bardt: Art made of paper . Olms, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 2006, ISBN 3-487-13093-9 , pp. 54-57 .
  • Renate Damsch-Wiehager (Ed.): Nul. Establishing reality as art . The Dutch group Nul 1960–1965. And today. Armando, Jan Henderikse, Henk Peeters, Jan Schoonhoven. (Dutch and German. Catalog for the exhibition “nul” in the Galerie der Stadt Esslingen Villa Merkel, January to March 1993, and in the van Reekum Museum Apeldoorn, July to September 1993). Edition Cantz, Ostfildern / Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-89322-535-8 .
  • JJ Schoonhoven: Zero, in: De nieuwe stijl, werk van de internationale avant-garde, deel 1, Amsterdam 1965 (Dutch)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Juliane Bardt: Art made of paper . Olms, Hildesheim 2006, ISBN 3-487-13093-9 , p. 56 .
  2. ↑ Juliane Bardt: Art made of paper . Olms, Hildesheim 2006, ISBN 3-487-13093-9 , p. 54 .
  3. ↑ Quotation from Schoonhoven, from Jos Wilbrink: The zero movement, about ideals, illusions and reality, in Renate Damsch-Wiehager (ed.): Nul. Establishing reality as art. The Dutch group Nul 1960–1965. And today. Edition Cantz, Ostfildern / Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-89322-535-8 , p. 19, with reference to JJ Schoonhoven: Zero, in: De nieuwe stijl, werk van de internationale avant-garde, deel 1, Amsterdam 1965 (Dutch )
  4. ↑ Quotation in JJ Schoonhoven: Zero, in: De nieuwe stijl, werk van de international avant-garde, deel 1, Amsterdam 1965 (Dutch), here quoted from Renate Damsch-Wiehager (ed.): Nul. Establishing reality as art. The Dutch group Nul 1960–1965. And today. Edition Cantz, Ostfildern / Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-89322-535-8 (Dutch and German. Catalog for the exhibition "nul" in the gallery of the city of Esslingen Villa Merkel, January to March 1993, and in the van Reekum Museum Apeldoorn, July to September 1993), p. 152.
  5. ↑ Jan Schoonhoven 1914-1994. Retrieved March 7, 2009 (English, In: Ronald Alley: Catalog of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet. London 1981, p. 674).
  6. ↑ R62-1 [1] , accessed December 7, 2018
  7. ↑ R 72-19 [2] , accessed on December 7, 2018
  8. ↑ R72-73-M14 [3] , accessed December 7, 2018
  9. ↑ R73-1 [4] , accessed December 7, 2018
personal data
SURNAME Schoonhoven, Jan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schoonhoven, Johannes Jacobus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch painter
DATE OF BIRTH June 26, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Delft
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 1994
Place of death Delft