During the sixties and seventies, Jaap van den Ende’s paintings were regarded and highly appreciated as exemplary for functionalist movements in that time. Standing out in their cool, geometric composition and conceptual colour investigations, his abstract paintings gained international esteem and were acquired by numerous private and museum collections.
From the nineties onwards, Jaap van den Ende made a startling turn by introducing figurative elements into his work. His current practice is still strongly defined by figuration: close to photorealistic landscapes are submerged by abstractions in colour and form, offering oppositions in reason and emotion, system and intuition, formal and organic semblance all at once.
Jaap van den Ende (1944, Delft, The Netherlands) studied at the Koninklijke Academie voor Beeldende Kunst in The Hague. His rich oeuvre is to be found in various collections, including the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach; Museum Bochum, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Gemeentemuseum Den Haag; Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden; CODA Museum, Apeldoorn; Rijksdienst Verspreide Kunstvoorwerpen, Den Haag; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Het Prinsenhof, Delft; and Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. In 2020, AKINCI organized the solo show ‘een rationele benadering / a rational approach’ with Van den Ende. He recently had a group show at Museum unter Tage, Bochum (2023) and exhibited with Ger Dekkers, Jan Dibbets, and Ger van Elk in the show Broken Landscapes at Situation Kust in Bochum (2014). Other exhibitions were held at Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tourcoing, FR (2001) Städtische Galerie, Nordhorn (1984), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (1982), Galerijs Sucremene Umjetnosti, Zagreb (1980), and repeatedly at Het Prinsenhof, Delft; Stedelijk Museum Schiedam; De Lakenhal, Leiden; Haags Gemeente Museum, and Parts Project, The Hague. Van den Ende has written various books about his vision on art and his personal practice. He lives and works in Delft.
