The Belgian ZERO artist Jef Verheyen (1932-1984) became known as the painter of light streams and colour spectra. He experimented not only with light, but also with movement and the invisible as means to evoke natural mechanisms and to reveal universal interrelationships between human beings and the surrounding world. He used geometric principles – his passion for geometry was born out of his interest in mathematics and (Greek) philosophy – as the basis for harmony. Verheyen never gave up on traditional media and materials such as the canvas, paint, and brushes to search for the essence of our nature. 

Jef Verheyen

© SABAM Belgium, 2024, Fondazione Lucio Fontana
• 0721 • L'air est plein de ta chaleur, 1958
Fondazione Lucio Fontana
Painting , 64 x 53 cm
Oil paint on canvas

This deep red painting is Verheyen’s first

successful monochrome experiment. The floating

half arc blends into the background, making

way for a meditative red. In 1958 this work is

exhibited for the first and last time, at the

G58 exhibition in the Hessenhuis, in Antwerp.

Verheyen’s Italian friend and mentor Lucio

Fontana acquires the painting.

This is the first time that the Fondazione

Lucio Fontana has loaned the work. After more

than 60 years, it is back in Antwerp.