Over the years, a number of books have been written about the Dutch artist Anton Heyboer. These books are all about his life as a recluse, about his wives, or about his work. They all have one thing in common: they’re about Anton Heyboer.

This book allows Anton Heyboer to speak for himself.
Anton Heyboer – the philosophy of an original mind – contains a collection of remarkable stories, thoughts and utterances by Heyboer himself, most of them tape-recorded by his wife Lotti.

These stories and utterances reveal the basis and soul of his work, as his art originated purely from his philosophy and thinking. Anton was, as he himself said, a ‘nothing’.
He lived and worked from a total emptiness of mind and only out of that emptiness could his work be created. He once said: ‘I have no brain activity. I don’t even know what to do with brains.’

The idea for this book was conceived a number of years ago. Through my work as a bookseller, I had regular telephone contacts with the Heyboer family. Over the years, it gradually became clear to me that this so-called ‘weird artist’ was not so weird after all. On the contrary. I finally decided to approach Lotti and put to her my plan for this book. The Heyboer partnership firm (Maria, Lotti, Marieke and Joke) was in agreement with the texts I had chosen and the ‘girls’, as Anton called them, together made a selection from among Anton’s photos and work. You now have the result before you.
I hope you will find both edification and enjoyment in this remarkable publication about one of the Netherlands’ greatest artists.