Jan Yoors

Jan Yoors (°1922 – † 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[clarification needed] he encountered on the outskirts of Antwerp at the age of twelve, and about which he would later write two memoirs, The Gypsies[2] (1967) and Crossing: A Journal of Survival and Resistance in World War II[3] (1971), the latter about living with the Rom during World War II. Yoors fled to London after the war, living with his wife Annebert and her best friend Marianne. At this point, Yoors began to design tapestries and set up a tapestry studio with his wife, Annebert and Marianne. In 1950, he moved to New York, where he traveled 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 travelled 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 and Europe, including reGeneration Furniture, Todd Merrill, L Parker Stephenson Photographs, Fifty-One Fine Art Photography, and Antwerp, and regularly shown at design and photography fairs. 

In cooperation with Gallery 51