Anton Van Dalen, a New York artist known for his dreamy cityscapes and depictions of the East Village, died on June 25 at the age of 86. His gallery, PPOW, confirmed his death in a statement, noting that he died in his sleep of natural causes at his East Village home.
Born in 1938 in Amstelveen, the Netherlands, into a conservative Calvinist family, Van Dalen witnessed the turmoil of World War II when the Nazis seized his family’s property. After graduating from the former Amsterdam School of Graphic Design in Amsterdam in 1954, Van Dalen and his family immigrated to Canada in 1954 and to the United States in 1966. He settled in New York’s East Village and dedicated his life to documenting the area’s cultural changes through surreal cityscapes or the monochrome series “Night Street Paintings” (1975-77), depicting scenes of car crashes, sex workers and dilapidated buildings on the Lower East Side.
Van Daren is perhaps best known for his work in the show Avenue A Papercut TheaterIn the piece, the artist walks into a room carrying a large cardboard box shaped like the apartment building he lives in. He then dumps out the contents of the box—miniature models of dogs, police officers, and various figures that resemble residents of the East Village—to examine the neighborhood’s history and gentrification.
“I try to make art, think about art, and see art, which is something we all do naturally and which we all understand in our own way,” Van Dalen once described his approach, sharing in a statement to PPOW. “There is no one interpretation—there are many. That’s the beauty of art. It’s not a single, biased field. You can always find yourself in it.”
2020 Documentary Films Anton: Circumnavigating Home The film provides an intimate look into Van Daren’s life, highlighting his deep connection to the East Village and his love of raising pigeons. Winner of the Best Documentary Portrait Award at the Los Angeles Documentary Festival, the film highlights how Van Daren raises pigeons on the roof of his home. Van Daren learned to train pigeons in the Netherlands at the age of 12, and the birds are a recurring theme in his work.
His last solo exhibition, “Pigeons: Where They Live and Work,” was organized by PPOW in 2022. In previous years, the artist has shown his paintings at venues such as the University of Massachusetts, Temple Gallery in Philadelphia, and EXIT Art in New York. In addition, many of his works are in the collections of prestigious institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
