Lot 38
  • 38

Jan Schoonhoven

Estimate
120,000 - 150,000 EUR
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Description

  • Jan Schoonhoven
  • R 61-5, Jalouzieënreliëf / Fanlight-shutters
  • signed and dated 1961 in felttip pen on the reverse ; signed and titled  R61-5 in felttip pen on the reverse
  • wood, cardboard, paper and emulsion paint
  • 100 by 81 cm.

Provenance

Collection Henk Peeters, Hall, acquired directly from the artist
Collection Herman and Henriëtte van Eelen, Amsterdam
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Exhibited

The Hague, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Nul - Zero: Armando, Henk Peeters, Schoonhoven, Mack, Piene, Uecker, 1964 - 1965, illustrated
Eindhoven, Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Jan Schoonhoven-reliëfs en tekeningen, November - December 1968, p.2, no. 16, illustrated
The Hague, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag; Nuremberg, Kunsthalle; Karlsruhe, Badischer Kunstverein, Jan Schoonhoven, Retrospectief, September 1984 - March 1985, p. 114, illustrated
Essen, Museum Folkwang; Maastricht, Bonnefanten Museum; Aarau, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Jan Schoonhoven- retrospektiv, 1995-1996, p. 89, illustrated, no. 89,  p. 173

Literature

J. Wesseling, Schoonhoven, The Hague 1990, p. 49, no. 34, illustrated
G. Finckh, Jan J. Schoonhoven - retrospektiv, Dusseldorf 1995, p. 89, illustrated  

Condition

This work is in very good condition. There is some dust layering on top of the horizontal surfaces. The wooden frame is an integral part of the work. Some minor cracks at the joints and incidental cracks at the wooden frame. One small spot of wood is detached from the outer frame.
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Catalogue Note

ZERO was not a perfectly organised group of artists. It was founded by Heinz Mack (born 1931) and Otto Piene (born 1928) in Düsseldorf in 1958 . Günther Uecker (born 1930) joined the group in 1961. A number of exhibitions were organised each time with other participants.
ZERO as a concept stands for a new start by which the symbiosis of nature, art and technique can be realised.
The program of ZERO mainly consists in the recognition that light is a leading principle of life and that a systematic organisation of means, without the elimination of chance and the irrational is necessary to the understanding of visual and sensual perception. The following elements always appear: light, vibration, monochrome and structure.
The colours of the spectrum are replaced by one colour only, the one that  posseses the greatest number of possibilities. Monochrome not only mirrors a spiritual, immaterial dimension but also reflects the irresistible fascination of space and depth, especially  in the case of R61-5- Jalouzieënreliëf/ Fanlight-shutters, whose individual elements now thrust more forcefully into the room.

"With the transition to the monochromatic, on the one hand, whose potential possibilities open up to him in the decisive year of 1960, and those of neutral serialism, on the other, Schoonhoven recaptured the free 'signature'of the former informel painter. To be sure, through his work within the neutral grid he anticipates characteristic aspects of Minimal Art, but in his insistence of craftsmanship there also resides a principle difference from the specific object in that movement: in his work on the series, he insists on the individual production of single elements. The transition to simple geometry is, of course, a confession of faith in objectivity, although the transition, in the case of Mondrian, is always intuitively based; within the tightly delineated borders of geometry, however, subjectivity should be able to unfold itself: "If I have a right angle and glue it in such a way and make a relief, then it should still- so I think- be a little poetic. Yes, so it lives". With his hand-work, Schoonhoven seeks the animation of the grid, thereby breaking down the pure objectivity of the geometric norm.

Schoonhoven builds the smallest components of his reliefs from cardboard or papier-maché. As in R61-5- Jalouzieënreliëf/ Fanlight-shutters, these are covered with painted paper, virtually like a skin: as a border between the cells."

(Source: G. Finckh, Jan J. Schoonhoven- retrospektiv, Dusseldorf 1995, p.69)