Jaap Mooy (1915-1987) was an extraordinary artist who lived in Bergen all his life. Although he spent his days as a blacksmith and fitter, he soon became obsessed with art and was inspired by the lifestyle of the Bergen artists he regularly met at the café. This marked the beginning of an idiosyncratic artist's career. Although Mooy considered enrolling at the academy, he followed the advice of Charlie Toorop and her entourage to remain self-taught.
In the early thirties, Mooy made photo collages and small assemblages, which he himself called "viewing boxes". Later he started working in the style of Cobra. He had a close friendship with Lucebert and in the 1960s exhibited together with Karel Appel and Lucebert in the Dutch pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Although he received an invitation to join Cobra, Mooy refused, because he did not want to belong to a group and wanted to continue speaking his own language.
From the late 1950s he became better known for his scrap images and drawings, for which he developed his own unique technique. His craftsmanship was masterful and his work had a profound eloquence. Mooy was scarred by the war and chose to work with waste, intrigued by both beauty and rubbish. His images brought him recognition in Germany and America in the 1960s.
Still, Mooy did not strive to make a name for himself. He believed that restricting his style meant losing his freedom. With this conviction he undermined his own unique signature and made it difficult for himself to find a place in the established order. He preferred the struggle against power. For Mooy, art was not an end in itself, he wanted to make people aware of human rights, dictatorships and oppression. He wanted to keep responding to the outside world.
The resident of Bergen would also go through an abstract period. His later images showed similarities with absurdism, in which the madness of everyday life was a recurring motif.
Jaap Mooy died in 1987, his work is very popular with collectors.
