Gerard van Rooy - Oval etching/aquatint "pheasant feather" 1978 - pencil signed - E.A. copy - Sold

Gerard van Rooy's talent was discovered at the age of 15 by a teacher at the Municipal Evening School for Art and Industrial Education in Utrecht, Dick van Luijn. "There's an etcher in you", he says. At the age of 20, he goes to the Rietveld Academy, where he doesn't feel at home. After a year, he decides to further master the profession himself.
In the sixties Gerard van Rooy is included in the Graphic Society De Luis, founded by Johannes Moesman, William (later: Dirkje) Kuik and Henc van Maarsseveen. He will play a prominent role in it. With De Luis he has many exhibitions at home and abroad for fifteen years.

Van Rooy was a teacher of Graphic Arts at the Utrecht Artibus Academy from 1968 to 1972. From the mid-seventies, Gerard van Rooy increasingly exhibited his work alone, or together with a fellow artist chosen by him for the occasion. Regularly returning locations are Galerie Petit in Amsterdam and Kunstzaal de Reiger and Galerie Jas in Utrecht. See also: exhibitions.
Between the late eighties and the mid nineties he makes a ceramic excursion. What starts as a playful collaboration with his friend and ceramist Gert de Rijk, becomes increasingly serious. When the brothers Anco and Henk van der Haar report, the four of them set up a ceramic company: Group Z4.

In the late nineties Gerard van Rooy throws himself into his graphic work with renewed inspiration. His print 'Drive' from 1998 speaks volumes in that respect.
In the last ten years he has been very productive. In addition to his free work, there are collaborations with his former teacher Piet Klaasse and with poet Ingmar Heytze. He also makes many ex-libris and occasional pictures.
Technique and style
Van Rooy is widely praised for his high technical perfection. He often combines different techniques on one record. The last thirty years of his life he mainly uses a modest and poetic style.