Toon Tersas
1924 - 1995
Born in Weert (), died in Dessel ().
Toon Tersas (1924–1995, Belgium) is the artist name of the ‘self-taught’ and ‘non-professional’ Antoon Keersmakers, who supports a large family by working as a clerk for an electricity company and is now described as ‘grossly underestimated’ during his lifetime. M HKA acquires a substantial amount of his works posthumously. Tersas’s calligraphic re-drawn newsprint pages from the 1960s and ’70s, often in languages other than Dutch, offer a sharp, sensitive analysis of how the public is manipulated by political power and its frequent use of violence. 'Portraits from the Cold War' are a good illustration of his subversive visual method.