Though working as a civil servant for the Dutch Postal Service for most of his life, Jan Schoonhoven was a founding member of the Nul Group, a cadre of Dutch artists who shared a collective interest in artistic purity and essential forms. Schoonhoven worked with modest materials, including cardboard, papier-mâché, newsprint, and paint, to create a body of work that explored serial abstraction and structures. R61-5, Jalouzieënreliëf (Fanlight-shutters), 1961, in Glenstone’s collection, depicts a set of shutters inside a structured white relief. Evoking a quiet modernity, the repetitive, monochromatic piece is softened by its handmade quality. The artist mingled an aesthetic purity with an object plucked from the everyday.

–From the Glenstone Field Guide