biography

Eef de Graaf

Born in 1939 in Delft, currently residing in Tiel.
As a teenager he went to see exhibitions unaccompanied and already painted with oil paint.
After obtaining a degree in teaching, he chose to enrol in further education at the Academy of Visual Arts in Amersfoort.

He has taught creative arts at a secondary school and graphic arts to all age groups.
Besides he worked in his own studio.

In the 70e he started making monochrome white relief pieces in which light completes the work and shadows provide the contrasts that illuminate through subtle means its structure.
About 1985 he started being fascinated by geometrical visual language and research into forms.
Within the movement of Constructivism he slowly finds his own direction and visual language.
Out of his white relief prints, the monumental relief panels develop naturally.The various geometrical forms are painted in clear primary colours: red, blue, and yellow- as well as in

white, black and grey.
These colours accentuate the geometrical play of forms.
The relief panels are composed of broken circles, rhythmically cut-up quadrants and diagonally cut-up triangles.
By virtue of the space cut out of the geometrical forms, the bare wall on which the relief piece is hung always plays a role.
A single geometrical form is always his starting-point and is allowed to engender endless variation in accordance with certain guiding principles.
He strives for perfection in execution and stimulates a critical enquiry into form and variaton.
The relief panels of Eef de Graaf give people new experiential sensations and thereby - in a playful manner - recreate the world.

Drs . Ankie de Jongh-Vermeulen, till 2006 director Mondriaanhuis Museum voor Constructieve en Concrete Kunst.

Exhibitions all over the world in museums and gallerys.
Book: "Een Leven in Reliëf " ISBN nr. 90-807019-5-5
www. eef-de-graaf. nl