He continued his high school mathematical studies by himself on his grandparents’ farm, and then took state exams in 1945.
His university studies were carried out at the University of Amsterdam, where he received the degree of Candidaat (equivalent to a Bachelor of Science) in 1947, and a Doctorandus (equivalent to a Masters in Science) in 1950, cum laude.
He obtained a PhD in mathematics in 1952, cum laude (Theory of the geometric object).
In 1966 he became a correspondent member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences,[5] and in 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
In a lecture at the American Mathematical Society Summer Institute in Differential Geometry (1956) in Seattle he was the first to mention deformations of complex structures and their exact relationship to cohomology.