Jo Heijnen - grote kleuren lithografie - beperkte oplage (30) - gesigneerd

• Titel: 
• Jaartal: 1985
• Afmetingen blad:  65cm x 50 cm (Beeld: 50cm x 35cm)
• Oplage: 21/30
• Gesigneerd: Ja, handgeschreven met potlood
• Materiaal: kleuren lithografie op geschept papier
• Ingelijst: Nee
• Conditie: in goede staat. 

JO HEIJNEN
Helden (The Netherlands) 1954 – Madrid (Spain), 2003
Jo Heijnen was born on 14th June, 1954, in Helden, a little township in the Limburg region of Holland, close to the German border. He was born into a farming family and, true to the local pattern; his schooling had to be fitted around helping his parents on the farm. He was a pupil at the secondary school in Helden, going on to complete first year studies in the Hight Technical School in Venlo. However, it did not take long for him to recognise the inevitability of his artistic vocation and, in 1975, he became a student at the St. Joost Academy of Fine Arts in Breda and moved out of the parental home for good. He stayed on in Breda, in the company of designer Lidwien Steenbrink, for some time after completing his studies. Both he and Steenbrink then moved to Berlin. In this city, he worked in collaboration with the artist Jan van den Langenberg and with Katharina Düttmann, among others. He returned to Amsterdam in 1983 and this time settled there, meeting and making friends with artists such as Hans Mosman, Mirjam de Zeeuw, Jan van Grunsven and Marc Volger, with whom he collaborated on various projects. Nineteen-ninety saw the start of his relationship with gallery-owner Maria Chailloux. Shortly after, and through her auspices, he started working with Galería Arteara in Madrid, where he exhibited his “A Painter’s Memory” project. From then on, he conducted his life between the two cities, marrying Karina Marotta in Madrid in 1994. During those years, he became part of the artistic life of Madrid and involved himself in initiatives aimed at refreshing the city’s cultural scenario. One such was Espacio “P”, whose founder, Pedro Garhel, became a close friend. Meanwhile, he was forging links with other galleries, such as Galeria Dels Angels, in Barcelona (and particularly with its founder, Sebastià Petit, who is still involved with his work in Spain). He also set up a network of like-minded European artists, all connected in some way with concrete abstraction, and some of them – Sotirakis Charalambou, Willi Otremba, José Manuel Prada – close adherents of Galerie María Chailloux and the ‘Color-Matter-Energy’ Project. One by-product was the “Clear and Saturated” exhibition curated by him for the gallery of Amsterdam’s Arti et Amicitiae, and for which he asked his friend José Luis Brea to provide the introductory text. In 2000, encouraged by his colleague and friend, José Manuel Prada, he was taken on as an associate professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts at Salamanca University. In June 2002, he fall ill and months later he was diagnosed as suffering from cancer. He died in Madrid on 7th January, 2003.