Willy Herman Friederich Boers was born in Amsterdam from a Dutch-German bankers family in 1905. He aborted his education to become a painting restorer until he became a painter himself in 1928.
His experience in conserving paintings found another practical application in preparing and treating the papers and canvasses for his innovative gouaches and collages.
His early years as self-taught painter and theoreticus coincided with the rise of the Nieuwe Zakelijkheid, which showed resemblance to his realistic portraits and mediterranean landscapes from that time period.
During the war Boers experimented with kubo-futurism. His feelings of powerlessness and repression during WWII made him one of the most dedicated supporters of abstract art in The Netherlands.
Together with Ger Gerrits, Harry van Kruiningen and Frieda Hunziker Boers unleashed a revolution in Amsterdam at the “Kunst In Vrijheid” exhibition of 1945.
After this revolte he was a co-founder of Vrij Beelden and Creatie, in which he fulfilled key roles.
His abstract works from that time are related to those of Klee, Kandinsky and Miro. Boers himself called it absolute- or integrated expressionism.
Willy Boers frequently visited France and had four exhibitions in the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in Paris. Those days are generally regarded as the first peak of his career.
During the sixties Boers wasn't very productive, but in 1970 a reviewer headlined “Boers doesn't know how to quit” on an exhibition of his second series of important material paintings and collages.
Willy Boers died in Amsterdam in 1978. He was and is exhibited in various museums and important private collections in Indonesia, Amsterdam, Paris, Germany and Switzerland.