Hendrik Pieter Pander was born in 1937 in Haarlem, The Netherlands, the first of ten children of the artist Jacob (Jaap) Pander and Hendrica Smedes Pander. Henk joined his father on drawing and watercolor painting expeditions to the Haarlem dunes, and by the time he enrolled in Amsterdam’s Rijksacademie in 1956, he was accomplished in drawing and painting. His training provided him with skills that related to Dutch art extending back to the seventeenth century as well as to twentieth-century movements such as Expressionism and Surrealism.
In 1964, Pander met Marcia Lynch, an art student from Oregon. They were married in Amsterdam and, with their infant son Jacob, moved to Portland. Though he has lived in the United States for nearly half a century, he describes himself as a “reluctant immigrant” who views the American scene as an outsider, bringing to his work a sense of detachment and, at times, critical commentary.
Pander taught painting and drawing at the Museum Art School (now Pacific Northwest College of Art) during 1965-1967 but otherwise has supported himself by selling artwork. To earn money, he diversified his production to include poster-making (primarily in the 1970s), portraiture, public art (including Oregon Percent for Art commissions), and works such as still life paintings and Dutch and American landscapes that appeal to private collectors.
Henk Pander’s works are in many collections, including those of the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), Museum Henriette Polak (Zutphen, The Netherlands), City of Amsterdam, City of Portland, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena), Portland Art Museum, Frye Art Museum (Seattle), Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (University of Oregon), and Hallie Ford Museum of Art (Willamette University), where a fifty-year retrospective exhibition of his work was shown in 2011. His public commissions are at Oregon State University, Oregon Public Safety Academy (Salem), Portland Center for the Visual Arts, and numerous other locations.
More:
Henk Pender (official website)