Lothar Wolleh sees Jan Schoonhoven

Few artists are so inextricably tied to their native soil as Jan Schoonhoven (1914-1994). In the early 1960s, the born and bred man of Delft achieved international renown with his white reliefs of paper and cardboard, yet he always remained loyal to ‘his’ Delft. The German photographer Lothar Wolleh (1930-1979) admired Schoonhoven’s work and visited Delft for the first time in 1968. Jan Schoonhoven and Lothar Wolleh intended their 1971 artists’ book to be a calling card of their artistry. It was a project which often brought the photographer back to Delft. Schoonhoven showed Wolleh how the rhythms of the city recur in drawings and reliefs as ‘isolated realities’. Pavement, weathered walls of the alleys of Delft and windows along the canals: Jan Schoonhovens work is abstract and autonomous, but ‘breathes’ Delft nevertheless. 

Text in English and Dutch.