Dutch painter and writer.
He was self-taught as an artist, but in 1918–19 he received drawing lessons from Dirk Nijland. He lived in Les Angles, France, from 1919 until 1929, where he painted in a style similar to van Gogh’s. Between 1933 and 1936 he lived outside Paris and associated with Georges Vantongerloo and Piet Mondrian. Towards the end of 1939, influenced by Picasso, he started to paint in an abstract manner. In 1944 the influence of Zen philosophy led him to make calligraphic drawings and to write poetry in Haiku-form.