Ян Йоорс: Суретші, фотограф және жазушының өмірі мен шығармашылығы

Belgian artist, photographer and writer

Jan Yoors (12 April 192227 November 1977) was a Belgian American artist, photographer, painter, sculptor, writer, filmmaker, and tapestry creator. Growing up in Antwerp to liberal, pacifist parents, his father Eugeen Yoors, a famed stained glass artist, Yoors studied painting before deciding to live with a Rom kumpania he encountered on the outskirts of Antwerp at the age of twelve, and about which he would later write two memoirs, The Gypsies (1967) and Crossing: A Journal of Survival and Resistance in World War II (1971), the latter about living with the Rom during World War II. Yoors fled to London after the war where he lived with his wife Annebert and her best friend Marianne. It is at this point that Yoors began to design tapestries and set up a tapestry studio with his wife Annebert and Marianne. In 1950 he moved to New York, traveling there under the guise of a journalist. The following year, Annebert and Marianne joined and the three set up the Jan Yoors Studio. In New York, Yoors befriended numerous figures in the art and design worlds. He received commissions from corporations such as Bank of America, and J. P. Morgan, and private collectors. His work was seen in numerous exhibitions across the United States and internationally. In New York in the 50s, Yoors also continued his passion for photography, which he began while living with the Rom, documenting the streets of New York. He traveled extensively on a trip to revisit his Rom family in Europe, and, in 1966–67 photographed post war religious buildings for Edward Sovik as part of the First International Congress on Religion, Architecture, and the Visual Arts in New York. Yoors's oeuvre is currently represented by several galleries in New York, Europe including reGeneration Furniture, Todd Merrill, L Parker Stephenson Photographs, and Fifty One Fine Art Photography, Antwerp, and regularly shown at design and photography fairs.

1922: Yoors is born in Antwerp to Eugeen Yoors, a famed stained glass artist who studied painting under Gustave Moreau, and Magda Peeters, a human rights activist, both of them Catholic pacifists. 1934: At the age of twelve Yoors first encounters a kumpania of the Romani people on the outskirts of Antwerp. Upon becoming friends with Putzina and his father Pulika, the Romanies adopt Yoors. 1934–1939: Yoors splits his time between the Romanies and his parents' home, often traveling long distances to find his Rom family. In 1939 Pulika sets up a marriage for Yoors with a Romani girl, though Yoors decides to leave, as the conflict of dual loyalties would return. Yoors studies sculpture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp.

On his way to the UK, Yoors is recruited by the French Resistance to co opt the Romanies, smuggling food and arms into Belgium, France, and Holland. 1941–42: Yoors attends the École nationale supérieure d'architecture et des arts décoratifs (ENSAAD – La Cambre) in Brussels. 1943: Yoors is arrested by the Gestapo and sentenced to death. After confinement and six months of torture at La Santé Prison in Paris, he works for the allies again, impersonating an SS officer and escorting allied soldiers from behind enemy lines, however he is caught and held at the Miranda de Ebro concentration camp in Spain until 1944. 1944: Yoors joins Belgian forces in the UK.

1946: Yoors marries Annebert van Wettum with whom he has corresponded since age 11. The two move to London and set up a studio at 27 Holland Park Avenue W.11. Here, Yoors begins sculpting and becomes fascinated by weaving after seeing an exhibition of French medieval and Renaissance tapestries. Yoors is a frequent contributor to the Gypsy Lore Society's journal in London.

Yoors studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). From: 1947–1948 Annebert's childhood friend Marianne Citroen joins them in London, also learning to weave. "Nadara" (1948), the first of the large tapestries, is completed. The Archer Gallery in London organizes the first exhibition of Yoors's work in tapestry. In 1949 the "Eighth Annual Exhibition of Catholic Art" at the Royal Institute of British Architects includes Yoors's work.