Jef Verheyen

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.

Piero Manzoni

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Untitled (Achrome), 1957

Lenz Schönberg Collection, Tyrol

Painting , 73 x 60 cm

Folded burlap soaked in kaolin

In Milan Verheyen expands his international

network. When he exhibits at the Galleria Pater

in 1958, Piero Manzoni walks in carrying white

paintings. Their encounter further stimulates

Verheyen’s musings about monochromy and

achromy. It is during this period that he writes

his manifesto Essentialisme (Essentialism).

His theories are closely related to those of artists

such as Günther Uecker, Otto Piene, Hermann

Goepfert, Lucio Fontana and Yves Klein. The latter,

for example, initially works in achrome white

before pursuing his famous blue pigment. In letters,

Klein and Verheyen debate the invention and

objectives of monochrome and achrome painting.

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