Toon Verhoef was awarded the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Art 1988.
Toon Verhoef has throughout the development of his vast oeuvre produced an uninterrupted series of paintings, gouaches, drawings and lithographs in which the consistent development of his painterly thinking clearly emerges. He has continually adhered to his goal, without troubling himself with the question of whether his work would earn recognition or not.
Toon Verhoef is a painter whose canvases stand out by their monumental format and their multi-layered, physical structure and transparency. Forms, colous, characters, lines, structures and textures overlay one another like transparent collages, offering an ingenious perspective that commands our undivided attention. Each work gives us a glimpse into the perceptual world of the artist and his intuitive quest. Verhoef was also a professor of art in the Netherlands and abroad.
About the laureate
Toon Verhoef (1946 Voorburg NL) is based in Edam and works in Amsterdam.
Education: Atlantic College, Wales UK; Art History, the University of South Africa, Pretoria SAF; Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam; Ateliers 63, Haarlem.
Other Prizes/Residencies: P.S.1, New York (1977-1978) USA; Buning Brongers Prize (1980); Sandberg Prize (1985); Darthmouth College, Hanover (2004) USA; Nirox Foundation, Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site (2009) SAF.
Works of art
Untitled, 1988 Oil on canvas, 290 x 580 cm
Courtesy Art & Project, Amsterdam
Untitled, 1987 Oil on canvas, 290 x 470 cm
Condon Collection