Plaque of prof. Schouten

Location: Entrance of the IPO building 

"Sculptors are not decorators" states Jos Reniers (1948), by which he means to say in particular that he likes simplicity. It applies to his sculptures and his clothes designs as well as to his medals.

Reniers does not finish the school for retail business that he attends after primary school and when he is sixteen he finds a job at the company Mextal, where he makes scale-models. In his leisure time he is an enthusiastic draughtsman and when Mextal goes bankrupt he applies, with a folder of drawings under his arm, at Vlisco in Helmond. Within six months he is allowed to make his own clothes designs, with which he is quite successful.

Vlisco in 1969 suggests that he follow the night school of the Academy for Industrial Design at their expense. After three years he is told that he 'draws like a sculptor' and that is his specialization when he graduates. Since then Reniers has alternated between the work at Vlisco and sculpture in six-month periods. The money he earns at Vlisco allows him to take unpaid leave for six months to realize his own designs. 'Time is money' for Reniers becomes 'Money is time'.

At the Academy he has found out about the making of medals. Reniers just makes many of these, quite different ones also. The Fédération Internationale de la Médaille in 1992 awards him the prize for the best combination of text and picture.

His first work for the TU/e he makes in 1985. It is the bronze plaque of prof. Schouten, the first director of the Institute for Perception Research. The accompanying text on the plaque is: 'Perceptio Agitat Mentem'.
In 2003 Reniers designs two medals: the TU/e medal and the Holst medal, which is handed out at the annual Holst lecture.

See also Vubis database
See also Penningen