Anton Heyboer - Abstract werk zwart-wit

Heyboer was born in Sabang, on the Indonesian island of Pulau Weh (north of Sumatra), the son of a mechanical engineer. Five months later the family moved to Haarlem, in 1925 to Delft, in 1929 to Voorburg and from 1933 to 1938 the family lived on Curaçao. This was followed by a stay in New York. Heyboer was trained as a mechanical engineer. The family returned to Haarlem before the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1943 Heyboer was arrested by the Germans as part of the Arbeitseinsatz and transferred to a Durchgangslager for foreign forced laborers in Prenzlauer Berg (Berlin). He managed to escape and, traumatized, he fled to the Netherlands, where he performed agricultural labor in Vinkeveen. After the Second World War he settled in Borger and held his first exhibition in Drouwen in 1946. In the same year he left for Haarlem and met his future wife, Elsa (Puk) Wijnands. After a trip of several months with Jan Kagie through the South of France in 1948, he returned to Haarlem and married Elsa Wijnands, with whom he would have a son two years later[1], but who already decided to divorce him in 1953. In 1951 Heyboer was admitted to the psychiatric hospital Santpoort in Bloemendaal for some time as a result of the war trauma. In September 1956, Heyboer married Erna Kramer, with whom he would stay for seven years and have one daughter. In 1961 he settled in a farm in Den Ilp. He lived there initially with three, later with five women. Heyboer drew, painted and etched. His wives handled the sales.