Anton Heyboer - The Primal Bird

Heyboer was born in Sabang, on the Indonesian island of Pulau Weh (north of Sumatra), as 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 in Curaçao. After that they stayed in New York. Heyboer was trained as a mechanical engineer. Before the outbreak of the Second World War the family returned to Haarlem. In 1943 Heyboer was arrested by the Germans as part of the Arbeitseinsatz and taken to a Durchgangslager for foreign forced laborers in Prenzlauer Berg (Berlin). He managed to escape and fled traumatized to the Netherlands, where he did agricultural work 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 in 1948 through the South of France he returned to Haarlem and married Elsa Wijnands, with whom he would have a son two years later[1] but who 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 together for seven years and had one daughter. In 1961 he settled in a farm in Den Ilp. He initially lived there with three, later with five women. Heyboer drew, painted and etched. His wives took care of the sales.

Painted by Anton Heyboer in 1989 with acrylic paint and Indian ink on handmade paper. Paper made by paper mill De Schoolmeester in Westzaan from rags.