Anton Heyboer

Anton Heyboer (born 9 February 1924 in Sabang, then the Dutch East Indies) grew up in Haarlem, Delft, Voorburg and Curaçao and trained as a mechanical engineer. In 1943 he was seized by the Germans for the Arbeitseinsatz and put to work in Berlin. He managed to escape and returned to the Netherlands traumatised; in 1951 he spent a period in the Santpoort psychiatric hospital.

After the war he settled in Borger and held his first exhibition in Drouwen in 1946. From 1961 he lived and worked in Den Ilp, north of Amsterdam, on a plot of land with a cowshed that he kept extending. There he lived in a commune with four women — Maria, Lotti, Marike and Joke — who also handled the sale of his work. He drew, painted and etched.

In the 1960s his work drew international attention: it hung in the graphic art section of documenta 2 (1959), documenta 3 (1964) and documenta 4 (1969) in Kassel. In 1964 he received the Japanese Ohara Museum prize, and the Accademia Fiorentina delle arti del disegno appointed him Academico Onorario. In 1984 he broke with the established art trade. He considered being famous dangerous, and being known good. In 2002 he was made Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau; he died in 2005 at his farm in Den Ilp.