Finely nuanced and virtually iridescent colour gradients are characteristic of the paintings of Flemish artist Jef Verheyen, born in Itegem/ Belgium in 1932. From 1946 to 1952 he studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp. In 1956  the first monochrome black works are created in discourse with Paul Klee. In 1957  Verheyen meets his later friends and artist colleagues Lucio Fontana and Robert Crippa at the Galeria Pater in Milan. In 1958 his first manifesto Essentialism is recognized  for the publication in art actuel international (issue 1959 -13) in Lausanne. In the late 50's, Verheyen meets Piero Manzoni and Günther Uecker. He makes contact by letter with Yves Klein and becomes an important link of the ZERO-Group. It is this remarkable post-war movement with which Verheyen identifies as an artist. This leeds to important joint international exhibitions from 1962 on and also to joint works of art (e.g. with Lucio Fontana, Hermann Goepfert or Englebert van Anderlecht). The lively exchange with his artist colleagues  is always an important source of inspiration and stimulus for him and his work. In 1974 he moves to the Provence with his wife Dani Francq, his daughter and his two sons. It is necessary for the viewer to look closely and be of an almost meditative state of mind in order to comprehend Verheyen’s paintings in their full depth. The "peintre flamant", who studies and graduates in classical painting at the Royal Academy Antwerp in the beginning of the 1950's, leaves only a relatively small œuvre; he himself calls his paintings "panchromatic works", encompassing all colours. His painting style almost completely annihilates any materiality of colour and brush. The subtle works of art are all the more impressive, as Jef Verheyen is visually impaired due to a congenital eye defect. His constant search for metaphysical insight is the programme, as it is, for those exceptional paintings, created with countless diaphanous coats of paint. They have titles such as Sun or Flemish Landscape. Light and colour as a means of perception, a physical and mental visual experience, are the central elements of his art. By constant experiments Verheyen approaches very similar ideas as the ZERO-Group with artists such as Heinz Mack, Otto Piene and later on Günther Uecker, who work mainly in the Rhineland. Lucio Fontana talks of Verheyen as his father, although he himself is considerably older than his Flemish friend. Apart from his art, he appreciates the intellectual and philosophical ways in which the Belgian artist knows how to put his own work and that of others into words. In 1984 he dies in Apt/Vaucluse en France.