Bart Koning began teacher training “d’Witte Lelie” in Amsterdam in 1975, specializing in art. He did not finish his studies.
From 1977 to 1979 he studied monumental art at the Academie Artibus in Utrecht. In 1979 he moved to the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, where he was taught painting and graphics, among other things. with Herman Gordijn and William Lindhout.
In the last year of the academy, Koning worked with Auke de Jong and Wim-Hessel van de Velde in a painting collective, accompanied by William Lindhout. After his graduation in 1982, this collaboration continued in Lindhout's studio.
In 1982, a group of artists around Lindhout founded the artist initiative “Aorta” in the former Handelsblatt building in the center of Amsterdam, in whose establishment and development Koning, de Jong and van de Velde were involved.
In 1992 Koning moved to Germany. In 2009, Koning was one of the initiators and organizers of the exhibition “Grosse Dujardin, 37 Krefeld artists exhibit”.
Bart Koning uses a realistic painting style that is rather unspectacular and reserved. He works with a mostly muted color palette, with the smallest nuances, especially in the gray tones, playing an important role.
By reducing the compositional elements, it appears as if the actual motifs are located in a barely defined space. This creates a kind of alienation. His motifs correspond to the common painterly genres: still life, portrait, landscape or animal painting.
