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.

Jef Verheyen - Window on Infinity

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(c)Jozef Peeters

Untitled (after a schematic drawing from 1924), 1958

Private collection, Belgium

Painting , 60 x 47 cm

Oil on canvas

In 1960 Jozef Peeters dies. In the early 1920s,

this Antwerp painter had been a pioneer of

abstract art. When the Antwerp neo-avant-garde

group G58 is founded, the young generation

recognise Peeters’ pioneering role by appointing

him honorary chairman.

With the death of Peeters, Jef Verheyen loses

both a friend and role model. ‘You were a sort of

Tijl Uilenspiegel. I needed you, so that I could

learn something from your wisdom and age, your

magazines, the exhibitions with Klee, Kandinsky

and Moholy-Nagy, whose work you knew so well.’

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