Johan Lennarts

Who is Johan Lennarts?

Johan Lennarts was a Dutch artist.

Johan Lennarts was born on 18 December 1932 in Strijp, Eindhoven, the youngest one of a family with five children. He used to paint as a child and even won the consolation prize in a contest for the school, but later on he gave up the art creation. Lennarts survived the Second World War and in 1945 he attended the Beekvliet seminary in Sint Michielsgestel to become a monk. In 1948 he attended the Joris College in Eindhoven and four years later he started to draw again during his final year at the HBS, receiving already in 1959 a grant from the French government. Although he enrolled first at the Royal Academy of the Arts in den Bosch and after a short period of time he transferred to the Art Academy in Tillburg he can be considered a self-taught artist.

The artist specialised in sculpture, glass-painting and canvas’ painting, and his favourite subjects were portraits, animals and flowers. Unlike his subjects, the styles and the painting techniques have changed along the years. Lennarts started working under the influence of CoBrA, joining efforts with the artist association and later art centre Vrije Expressieven in the 1956. In a decade later he constituted the anarchical collective Schijt aan Schilderkunst. It was by the exhibition titled after the SAS that Lennarts led the world see his fascination for the green colour, even producing his own “lennartsgreen”. After the American Pop Art he created collages, panels and polyptichs while he was also engaged with social projects. In 1970 another exhibition took place: Tot lering en vermaak in order to bring art closer to people and make it more understandable. Johan Lennarts, Ad Snijders and Lukas Smits organized the show and according to their conclusion that artists should be involved in planning the living environment, they decorated the exhibiting space as a private house.