Anton Heyboer - Acrylic on canvas, signed m.o.

“Finished! Going straight into the shop. (…) One hundred and fifty guilders.” On his property, in his self-built home, surrounded by his five wives, a man with white makeup sketches a dancer on paper in about three minutes with frantic gestures, while André van Duin and the camera from Van Duin’s sketch series *Thuis bij…* look on. This is how the Netherlands knows Anton Heyboer (Sabang, Indonesia, 1924 – Den Ilp, 2005). What people generally do not know is that Heyboer was a celebrated artist in the 1960s and 70s whose work was acquired by the MoMA in New York, shown at Documenta in Kassel, and honored with major exhibitions at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. In 1975, he was even presented alongside David Hockney and Lucian Freud at LACMA in Los Angeles as one of the most important European painters of that time. Forty years after his last major museum exhibition, the Gemeentemuseum aims to bring the international quality of his oeuvre back into the spotlight. The exhibition shows the development of his oeuvre, with an emphasis on the period 1956–1977, but also highlights the 'system' through which the artist found a way to make life bearable for himself. In doing so, it becomes clear how Heyboer's life and work are inextricably linked.