Until his death in 1974 Willem Wander Kersten was a driving force in the innovative art movements in the Netherlands. During the Second World War he worked for the resistance, for which he received an award. In those years he also discovered the later world-renowned Gerrit Benner.
In 1945 at the exhibition Kunst in Vrijheid he was discovered by the artists with whom he later founded "De 12 Schilders" and the "Vrij Beelden". He was also one of the founders of "contra-performance" and BKR when he was curator of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
His oeuvre varies greatly in style: from Bergense School and cubist (before the war) through surrealist and (as a whole his own style) "Cubist", to abstract-expressionist/lyric-abstract.
