Johannes Jacobus (Jan J.) Schoonhoven was a Dutch visual artist. He is internationally recognized as one of the most important representatives of the ZERO movement.
Schoonhoven was co-founder of the Dutch Informal Group in 1958. Two years later, together with the artists Armando, Henk Peeters and Jan Henderikse, he founded the Nul-group. These artists strived for an objective art, which was stripped of any emotional value and in which the presence of the artist as a person was obliterated. With Schoonhoven this was mainly expressed by the creation of white reliefs, brown cardboard reliefs and black and white ink drawings on paper.
The past decade has seen a truly worldwide advance of ZERO art. Schoonhoven's work played a key role in this.