Bob Daenen
Designer - Painter – Writer - Photographer

1942- born in Leuven, Belgium. During his high-school day-studies, he followed the evening Academy of Arts ( sculpture & etching).
1960- starts studies industrial design at the Design Academy in Eindhoven- Netherlands.
1962- Delaunois-prize for painting with scholarships:
1963- Summer-Academy Mithymna - Greece (painting & photography , Greek ancient art )
1964 -Summer-studies at the “Accademia di belle Arti – Pietro Vannucci” in Perugia – Italy (to study drawing - lithography & the Italian Renaissance art in Florence).
1965- graduates as industrial designer, works as graphic designer (Belgian television - bookcovers - housestyle)
1966- hired by Tupperware Europe- Africa & Middle East to set-up a European Design group and develop new products for a pan-European market.
1969- designs art-objects & starts with US friends "Thingks Inc.”, producing & marketing his "Puzzle Panels" to leading museum art-shops in the USA , bringing low priced large 3D- puzzle-parts to create & frame your own compositions ( " art-participations " ),in reaction to the very expensive “art-multiples” on the gallery-market.
1960’s-: lyric abstract paintings - since 69 moved to geometrical abstract paintings & graphics.
1972-1980 - Wooden objects-sculptures & mixed-media, with various personal & group art-exhibitions.
1978-selection & exhibition of his Tupperware-designs at the Design Centre Brussels.
1980- International recognition & selection at the Design Centre London, in the permanent collection " Design Index ". His most popular design, the Space Savers (Europe) or Modular- Mates (USA –Pacific) became in a few years a large range with global successes.

After building up a strong design team, he was promoted end 1980 to Vice President Product-Development, Tupperware Europe Africa & Middle East. Later he works temporarily in the United States & Pacific, to assist design-organizations. Returns to figurative drawing & painting and starts writing, editing yearly small volumes of poetry,
1989- “ De tijdloze Overgang “,
1994- twelve volumes grouped in the book: "Een dozijn woorden, One dozen words”,
1997- "BloemenWoorden voor Elodie"
1998- eight volumes with drawings and poetry in one book:"Provence- In Bewondering - In Admiration".
1998- " Je Zocht ". In 2001- " Tekens zonder Taal ", & two homage-editions to friends:"Meditation for Morison",
2003- " Letters to my Friend "

Many of his designs are selected by the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum (USA) when assigning Tupperware the “2001 Corporate Achievement Award”.
In 2002 he becomes Vice President Innovation, Tupperware Corporation. The design-centre at the worldwide headquarters in Orlando renamed: "Bob Daenen Design Centre" to celebrate his many achievements (with more than 260 patents and numerous design-awards on his name, such as: Industrial Design-New York, Good Design Award-Tokyo, Institute Industrial Design-Rotterdam, Musée d'Art Moderne- Paris, Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen-Essen, Industrie Forum Design-Hannover, Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design.)
2003- receives the prestigious Henry van de Velde career- prize & an exhibition in the Design Flanders - Centre Brussels.
2004- retires from Tupperware and starts his own consultancy “DaenenDesign”.
Elected “Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts”, London. His latest book projects “Reflecties – Reflections” and “ Zien-Herzien-Herleven ” combine his photographs and writings in a complementary interaction, searching “Perception versus Reality”.
2005- large retrospective exhibition in the Aalst (Belgium) city-museum, showing a selection of his designs, paintings, sculptures, writings & photographs. Works in his Studio 1 in Aalst-Belgium and in Studio 2 in the Provence – France.

His multi-facetted creative activities must be seen as a permanent evolution, an active search to integrate different forms of “thinking- living- creating” into one holistic synergy, one creative-network, a growth-search called: Spiritual Life.

Robert H C M Daenen
DaenenDesign
studio 1: Aalst - Belgium
studio 2: Provence - France
www.bobdaenen.com
bobdaenen@gmail.com