studied at the academy of arts in rotterdam 1954-1958. in 1961, partly influenced by mondrian, dekkers began to make reliefs, built out of layers of flat geometric shapes with asymmetrical compositions. he soon abandoned the use of colour and began to work mainly in white. as from 1966 his reliefs became more systematic and linear, constructed out of fewer planes, or just lines cut into a flat surface. they were often based on the transformation of one geometric shape into another, e.g. a square into a circle. in dekkers' time the climate in the dutch art world was characterized by an openness to international developments. foreign artists like carl andre, lawrence weiner, robert ryman and donald judd came to the netherlands and introduced the first impulses towards minimalism and conceptual art, of which dekkers was the dutch exponent. dekkers died in gorinchem 1974 |