Henk van Putten

Embrasse - black contemporary modern abstract geometric wood sculpture

1987

Henk van Putten originally followed a technical education and worked as an industrial designer in the 50s and 60s of the last century. In that same period, he extensively traveled to Morocco and Spain and lived for a while in Ibiza, where he started to work as an artist. Upon his return to Netherlands in the early 70s he settled in Amsterdam and continued working as an independent sculptor. In the late 90s, he became intrigued by India and after numerous trips, he decided in 2001 to move permanently to Auroville in the south of India. The sculptures made by Henk are abstract geometric, constructive by nature. His ideal is to create work that has simple but strong shapes, well made and of interesting construction. His older work is often monumental in size although smaller works are the main part of his portfolio. His work was exhibited in solo and group shows at many famous galleries and at renowned art fairs including Art Basel, Art Cologne, PAN Amsterdam, Art Rotterdam and KunstRAI Amsterdam. Putten’s work is in various private and public collections, including the Yellow Fellow Foundation and Museum Het Valkhof in The Netherlands, Museum Schloss Moyland in Germany, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo in Spain and ArtParkS International in the UK. His work was also featured in numerous artistic and scientific publications. Towards the end of 2018, Putten started creating miniature sculptures from solid brass, all based on his earlier created large scale sculptures. Sadly he only completed a few of these miniatures before he rather suddenly died in February 2019, shortly after his return from a visit to Netherlands to his home in Auroville.