A few months ago the TRC was given a face mask that is hand painted with an image of a girl and an elephant in a landscape setting (TRC 2021.2484). It is signed Fabrice and has the title: "ZoZo". The face mask was made by the Dutch artist Fabrice Hünd and donated to the TRC by friends of the artist, Monica Penders and her son Jirka, who a few weeks ago also bought some hand painted Christmas tree baubles directly from the artist.

On New Year's Day we received the sad news that he had died the day before, on New Year's Eve, at the age of sixty. 

Face mask designed and hand painted by Fabrice Hünd, 2021 (TRC 2021.2484).

Fabrice Hünd left behind a large oeuvre of paintings, drawings, mosaics and wall decorations, as well as three-dimensional installations. In the 1980s and 1990s he often made, sometimes huge, wall paintings, and he described himself as a true street artist. In his work he made use of all sorts of materials, worked on different types of ground material, often recycled.

Fabrice Hünd in front of his workshop at the Jacob van Lennepkade 137, Amsterdam, on 10 May 2016. Photograph by Paul Berendsen.

He is particularly known for his five 'mega-mosaics' that can be found at various places in Amsterdam. Hünd described his technique to paint the mosaics, which he started to apply from about 2004, as Schilderen met scherven (Painting with sherds).

His work is generally characterised by vivid colours and fluid lines, thereby expressing, as he stated himself, his happiness and love for life. In 2017 a book came out, co-authored with Cornelia Doornekamp, simply called Fabrice Hünd, which outlines his life and work, with illustrations of his artistic oeuvre (Hilversum: Cornelia Art & Consort; ISBN 9789082796605).

Willem Vogelsang, 3 January 2022