Anton Rooskens

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Anton Rooskens was a Dutch contemporary artist and teacher at the Don Boscoschool in Amsterdam. His painting draws heavily on 'primitive' art, particularly African art, as well as on the work of surrealist artists such as Joan Miró and André Masson. After the end of the Second World War, Rooskens saw the Rijksmuseum's Art and Freedom exhibition in Amsterdam: this was the first time he encountered the sculpture and traditional masks of African and New Guinean tribes. Following this exhibition, his style became characterised by simplified, bold, heavy lines and fields of colour using minimal strokes. In 1948, he became involved in the experimental movement Reflex. It was around this time that he was introduced to artists Karel Appel and Eugene Brant from the CoBrA movement, and he remained associated with the group during their first exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in 1949. Rooskens’ combinations of colours, shapes and forms had a decisive influence within CoBrA. In the next phase of his work, he incorporated magical signs and symbols into his paintings, especially after a trip to Central Africa in 1954. He then began an expressionist phase in which he responded to the threat of a crisis in Cuba with more troubled painting. He had many solo and group exhibitions, and his work is featured in public collections in the Stedelijk Museum and the Museum of Schiedam.