Relief 70-19. 1970.
Paint and papier mâché on wood, mounted in object box.
Signed, dated and titled "R 70 - 19" on verso. Ca. 38 x 38 cm (14,9 x 14,9 in). Object box: 53 x 53 x 6,5 cm (20,9 x 20,9 x 2,6 in).

PROVENANCE: Collection Helmut Klinker, Bochum.

EXHIBITION: Collection Helmut Klinker. Paintings, sculptures, objects and graphic works, ex. cat. Museum Bochum, 12 May - 1 July, 1984, cat. no. 54, illu. p. 35.

Jan Jacobus Schoonhoven was born in the Dutch town of Delft in 1914. From 1930 to 1934 he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in The Hague, where he was active as a freelance artist after he had completed his studies, however, for financial reasons he also worked for the Dutch Post after World War II. In 1955 he made his first serial reliefs, as of the early 1960s exclusively in white. Schoonhoven was a member of the Dutch artist group "Informelle Groep" in 1958-60 and founded, together with Armando, Jan Henderikse and Henk Peeters the "Nul-groep" (1960-65).

"Schoonhoven‘s white reliefs from the 1960s and 1970s consists mostly of corrugated board, pasted with paper and painted in white. The reliefs are three-dimensional and as such also tangible objects. They are objects, being what they are, they don’t represent or imitate anything that they are not. [..]. Schoonhoven‘s white serial reliefs, grid-like systems on their surface and with a number of equal or similar spatial indentations. What makes them serial is the repetition of the same. The grid systems make for geometric forms. [..] Whatever it is, depending on the relief, it always is what it is, and nothing else.“ (Max Imdahl, transl. of quote after: Künstler. Kritisches Lexikon der Gegenwartskunst, edition 9, p. 7).

In 1967 he was honored the second prize at IX. Biennale of São Paulo, in 1984 he received the David-Röell Prize. In 1994 Jan Schoonhoven died in Delft. [CB].