NEW YORK, NY.- In the work of Dutch artist Jan Schoonhoven, wroteThe New York Times art critic Roberta Smith in 1999, “clarity and purity reign.” Born in Delft in 1914 and regarded as one of the most important Dutch artists of the twentieth century despite being relatively unknown in the United States, Schoonhoven was an active and influential player in the course of major European post-War developments in art, particularly related to monochromatic, serialized abstraction. His early abstract drawings, influenced by the work of Paul Klee, eventually evolved into spare, delicate, and often grid-based papier mâché reliefs. In the 1960s, Schoonhoven co-founded the avant-garde Nul-groep (Nul group), a Dutch branch of the international Zero movement that sought to reduce art to the zero degree by simplifying compositions and using everyday materials.

This catalogue was published in conjunction with the first significant presentation of Schoonhoven’s work in New York, if not America, in many years. Serving as an important contribution to literature on the artist published in English, this extensive exhibition catalogue is anchored by richly detailed plates of the sculptural reliefs and works on paper featured in the show, all of which were made between the mid-1950s and early 1970s. During that period, Schoonhoven focused on the production of white, monochrome reliefs and black ink drawings whose integration of meticulous control and automatic gesture exemplify the artist’s ability to balance rigorous order with the expressiveness of the hand.

Featuring new scholarship by Antoon Melissen, one of the foremost authorities on Schoonhoven’s work, as well as documentary photographs and an illustrated chronology, this publication offers an invaluable introduction to the work of this pioneering champion of the proto-Minimalist tendencies that sprang up in Europe and the United States in the early 1960s.

Special book launch and signing
On the occasion of the publication Jan Schoonhoven, author and foremost authority on the artist, Antoon Melissen, is joined in conversation by David Zwirner Director David Leiber, organizer of the gallery’s recent exhibition of the artist’s work.

New York Public Library
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, South Court Auditorium
Wednesday, April 22, 2015, 6-8 PM

Jan Schoonhoven (1914-1994) is regarded as one of the most important Dutch artists of the late twentieth century and is recognized for his extensive and systematic investigations into light, form, and volume through his sculptural wall reliefs and works on paper.

Despite spending the majority of his life in Delft, Holland, Schoonhoven worked in dialogue with and had a significant impact upon an international group of avant garde artists. Beginning in the 1950s, he played a central role in the Nederlandse Informele Groep (Netherlandish Informel Group) and the Nul-groep (Nul Group)—which were affiliated with the European Informel movement and the Zero Group, respectively—and was included in numerous important and related group exhibitions including Zero-O-Nul at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague, in 1964, and Amsterdam, Paris, Düsseldorf at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1972. He participated in documenta 4, Kassel, in 1968, and the IX Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil, in 1967, where he was awarded second prize.

Schoonhoven’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at museums including the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague, in 1967, and the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands (1968, 1972, and 1973). Major surveys and retrospectives of the artist’s work have been held in international institutions: in 1972, Jan J. Schoonhoven traveled from the Städtisches Museum, Mönchengladbach, Germany, to the Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, and the Museum van Bommel van Dam, Venlo, the Netherlands; in 1985–86, Jan Schoonhoven Retrospektiv: Tekeningen en reliëfs traveled from the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague, to the Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg, and finally to the Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany; and in 1995–96, Jan J. Schoonhoven – retrospektiv traveled from Museum Folkwang, Essen, to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, and the Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland.

The artist’s work was recently included in the group exhibition Zero: Countdown to Tomorrow, 1950s-60s at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, from October 2014 - January 7, 2015. A centennial exhibition of the artist’s work is being held at Situation Kunst, Bochum, Germany, in 2015.

David Zwirner presented the first significant exhibition of the artist’s sculptural wall reliefs and works on paper in America in over a decade, at their 537 West 20th Street location from January 9 - February 14, 2015.