Successful Dutch artist and art professor, who lost both legs after an assault.
From 1977 to 1982, he studied painting and audiovisual art at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Until 1993, Rob had a studio called The Living Room where he exhibited for the first time in 1984. He also became art teacher in Amsterdam (Rietveld Akademie, the Sandberg Institute) and the Royal art academy of Copenhagen. From 1993 till 1998 he was art professor at the Kunsthochschule Kassel, from 1999 till 2001 at the Artesis Hogeschool of Antwerp.
Part of his work consists of reproductions of images from the media and from art history. For this reason he was often accused of plagiarism. Like Warhol’s pop-art, Scholte used common motives like pin-up girls, but put them in another context. This remaking of old themes became his trade mark.
When art critic Bas Roodnat published the article “Het schilderij Utopia van Rob Scholte, nieuw gebruik of nabootsing?”(NRC-Handelsblad, 3 December 1987), he copied the article and presented it as new work of art called “Nostalgia”. Actually his Utopia 1986 was a remake of Manets Olympia from 1863, that referred back to the Venus of Urbino by the Italian master Titiaan (1538), which was based on Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus (c. 1510), which Titian completed.
His work has been shown in São Paulo Art Biennial (1985), Documenta, Kassel (1987), Aperto, Venice (1988), Boijmans Van Beuningen (1988), Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (1989), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1990), Venice Biennale (1990), Kunsthaus Hamburg (1991), Museum Van Bommel-Van Dam, Venlo (1992) Grey Art Gallery, New York (1993),Sprengel Museum, Hannover (1994), Paleis Huis ten Bosch, Nagasaki (1995), Fries Museum (2000), Groninger Museum (2002), Galerie Witteveen Amsterdam (2004, 2005, 2006), Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen (2005)
Personal
His and Peter Klashorst’s wild night-life, full of alcohol, dope and women inspired his friend Joost Zwagerman to write the novel Gimmick! (1989).
In 1991 he met the model and photographer Mirjam (Mickey) Hoogendijk (8 July 1970, Amsterdam). She became the manager of Rob Scholte BV. Mickey got pregnant, but after 9 months the child was stillborn. On 31 May 1994, they married in house temple de RoXY in Amsterdam.
On 24 November 1994, Ron and Mickey went to the doctor, to check if Mickey was pregnant. She was, but at 08:50 AM the BMW Rob drove, was blown up by hand grenate under his car. Rob lost both his legs and Mickey got an abortion. Rob survived thanks to bystanders who stopped his heavy arterial bleeding by putting coins in his arteries. Rob had surgery to remove the shelves, but his legs needed to be amputated. Body guards ware in the hospital to prevent a second attack.
The case has never been solved. Being commercially very successful and critically acclaimed, Scholte was envied by many of his contemporaries. Even after his horrible fate, some evil voices suggested the assault was a p.r. stunt. Others speculated that he was involved connection between the cocaine sniffing Amsterdam art world and the criminal world, involving drugs and money laundering. As succesfull artists like Scholte could pay their cocaine in natura by exchanging them for paintings.
But most likely, the assault was a settlement in the criminal circuit not meant for Scholte, as his boisterous BMW 525i was also popular under criminals and even their white collar lawyers. Another well known BMW owner, the lawyer Oscar Hammerstein (20 February 1954 Rotterdam) said to the police that he was threatened a day before. After the assault, Rob went to Tenerife. He could not stay in Amsterdam. On 15 March 2003 he returned back to Holland.
Today Rob Scholte is father of the Lotus Mason (2001, Tenerife) and a girl from Lijsje Snijder (married 2006).

Link to Wikipedia