Leon van den Eijkel


Leon van den Eijkel was a Dutch-born New Zealand artist who studied at The Hague's Royal Academy of Art from 1958 to 1963, and emigrated to New Zealand in 1986. Van den Eijkel exhibited widely in Europe, the United States, and New Zealand, and is represented in many major public and private collections.

Biography

Van den Eijkel was born in The Hague on 15 October 1940. He studied at the Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague, from 1958 to 1963. He moved to Leiden in 1967, and emigrated to New Zealand in 1986. He first settled in Wellington, remaining there until 1998, before moving to Auckland, where he lived for the rest of his life. Van den Eijkel died on 15 April 2021, aged 80.

Style

His use of colour has been heavily influenced by the works of Mondrian which he saw as a child in his native Netherlands. After moving to New Zealand and visiting the kauri forests he was inspired to produce a series of works based on urban trees which culminated in the Urban Forest sculpture in Wellington. This work has the size and heft of a kauri tree trunk combined with his trademark primary colours. He collaborated on this work and other large fabricated steel pieces with the engineer Alan Brown and the team at Metal Art Ltd.

Public collections

He is represented in major international collections including:

Notable works