Jan Schoonhoven Biography

1932–36 he studied at the Royal Academy in The Hague. The artist was included in numerous important group exhibitions with the Netherlandish Informal Group, Nul Group, and the ZERO Group throughout the late 1950s and 1960s, including Zero-O-Nul at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague, in 1964, and Amsterdam, Paris, Düsseldorf at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1972. He participated in documenta 4, Kassel, in 1968, and the IX Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil, in 1967, where he was awarded second prize. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at museums including the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague, in 1967, and the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands (1968, 1972, and 1973). Major surveys and retrospectives of the artist’s work have been held in international institutions: in 1972, Jan J. Schoonhoven traveled from the Städtisches Museum, Mönchengladbach, Germany, to the Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, and the Museum van Bommel van Dam, Venlo, the Netherlands; in 1985–86, Jan Schoonhoven Retrospektiv: Tekeningen en reliëfs traveled from the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague, to the Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg, and finally to the Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany; and in 1995–96, Jan J. Schoonhoven – retrospektiv traveled from Museum Folkwang, Essen, to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, and the Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland. In 1984, Schoonhoven received the prestigious David Röell prize for Dutch visual artists.

Schoonhoven’s work can be found in important public and private collections throughout the United States and Europe, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague; Groninger Museum, Groningen, the Netherlands; Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop, Germany; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark; Malmö Konsthall, Sweden; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Situation Kunst, Bochum, Germany; Kunstmuseum Bochum, Germany; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the Tate Gallery, London. This is the first exhibition of the artist’s work at David Zwirner.