Joost van Roojen was forced to leave school in 1942, at the age of 14, due to the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands during WWII. While evacuated to the small town of Ede he started to paint and has been doing so until his death in 2012. After the war he initially complemented his painting with screen printing self-designed shawls and other textiles, which he sold to individual collectors as well as a few reputable interior design shops.
In 1951 and 1952 van Roojen spent several months in Algeria and made long trips through the Sahara desert. The sense of infinite space, radiance and colours made an everlasting impression and influenced his work enormously. In 1953 he moved to Amsterdam and married the artist Teresa van Beek. From this time onwards, van Roojen became associated with a group of post-war artists, such as Carel Visser, André Volten, Constant, Joost Baljeu, Shinkichi Tajiri and others.
During the 1960s van Roojen had a number of exhibitions throughout The Netherlands, as well as two exhibitions together with Carel Visser. He organized several viewings in his own studio and sold works to private collectors. Major museums, such as the van Abbe in Eindhoven, the The Hague Municipal Art Museum and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam displayed and acquired several paintings (many works on these pages are from their collections). The earliest work in this section dates from 1956. As a later stage earlier works will be added, including textile designs and oil paintings.

All works appear in approximately the same size on this website, but true measurements differ quite substantially.
Please refer to the descriptions for correct dimensions and note that these are rounded to the nearest full cm. Many paintings in this section are in museum or private collections. Others are part of the Van Roojen Estate and some may be for sale.