Willem Boonartist • painterDordrecht 1902-1986 Rotterdam

Willem Boon studied at the academy of Rotterdam from 1918 to 1921. After that he was actively involved in initiatives of the young Rotterdam artists to encourage the municipality to pay more attention to modern art. In 1929, for example, as a member of the Liga van beeldende kunstenaars (an organisations of expressive artists) , founded that year, he took part in an open-air exhibition in protest against the - missing - municipal art policy. In 1933 he founded the group ROTTERDAM 1933 (R33) of expressive artists, which included Marius Richters, Quirijn van Tiel and Hendrik Chabot. In 1936 they were given a group exhibition for the first time in Museum Boymans-van Beuningen. In May 1940, most of the artist's early work was lost in a bombing raid. After that he gradually painted more and more abstractly.