Theo Schoon
Born in 1915 in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), Schoon studied at the Rotterdam Academy of Fine Arts before emigrating with his parents to New Zealand in 1939. Schoon was particulalry intrested in the avant-garde Bauhaus movement, a German art and design school that revolutionised twentieth-century art. The Bauhaus taught that divisions between art and craft were illusory, and both were equally valid artistic expressions. This idea influenced Schoon for his whole artistic life and gave him the freedom to experiment in many media.
Schoon also drew on Indonesian art influences throughout his long career, and he became one of the first European artists in New Zealand to use customary Mâori patterns and motifs in their work. Schoon's characteristic blend of European modernism with inspiration from Mâori art had a major impact on New Zealand art in the mid-twentieth century. He produced a diverse body of work including paintings and drawings based on his own interpretation of Mäori köwhaiwhai patterns and moko designs, gourd carvings, photography and jewellery. Schoon died in 1985.