Background
Jef Verheyen was born on July 6, 1932 in Itegem, Antwerpen, Belgium. His father was a house painter, and his mother worked in a paint store.
- Photos
- Works
Main Photo
Jef Verheyen
- Photos
- Works
painting
Untitled
Schimmen (Petite Peinture)
Blue
Lichtbogen (Flamand Rose)
Untitled
Laser
Untitled
Espagne
Untitled
Matin
Afternoon in September
Jef Verheyen
Edit ProfileEducation
From 1947 to 1952 Jef Verheyen studied painting and ceramics at the Royal Academy and the Higher National Institute in Antwerp.
Career
Jef and his wife opened a ceramics workshop L'atelier 14 together in 1954. From 1957 he makes abstract paintings with which he positions himself against the materialisation of painting. Verheyen started to concentrate mainly on painting, at first gestural abstract paintings and then evolving to a style in which he started to conceal the mark of the hand altogether. Using untraditional water-based and household paints he built layers of paint in series of translucent glazes producing subtle gradations of colour in the manner of the Dutch Old Masters.
Verheyen spent his career studying the subtleties of colour and light, depth and surface, attempting to interpret and find the essence of the physical and ethereal, creating a meditational and spiritual experience for the viewer. For him looking was not the same as seeing.
In 1957 Jef travelled to Milan and met Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, and Yves Klein which resulted in a lifelong friendship and artistic collaboration and with the ZERO group, Otto Piene, and Günther Uecker among others. Verheyen participated in almost every ZERO exhibition connecting them with artists and collectors of the time in Belgium. He wrote a manifesto of Essentialism in 1958 and co-founded Nieuwe Vlaamse School in 1959.
Verheyen died in 1984 at the age of 51 after a heart attack on the tatami. Verheyen’s work was included in the ZERO retrospective exhibition at Guggenheim, New York in 2014 – 2015 and his work can be found in renowned public and private collections such as Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Lenz Schönberg Collection, RIRA Collection, Cologne, Stiftung Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf.
Achievements
Works
painting
Views
In his quest towards visualising purity, his work evolved towards an absolute total experience of light and colour. Verheyen investigated that theme, founded in philosophy, not only plastic, but also literary. He wrote lyrical, often poetic visions. The ‘ecstasy’ and the ‘essentialism’ were the important cornerstones around which Verheyen constructed his plastic and literary oeuvre.
Membership
Personality
Jef had an outspoken and stubborn character.
Interests
Connections
Jef was married to Dani Franque.
