According to the informational booklet "Anton Heyboer: Timeless Work", he was born on the small island of Pulau Weh in the north of Sumatra as the son of a Dutch mechanical engineer and a school teacher.

In 1939 the family took a vacation in the Netherlands, but due to the outbreak of WWII they could not return to Curaçao and settled in Voorburg, where Anton went to work for the company "Van der Heem" in The Hague.

In 1943 he was conscripted for work service in Germany and spent seven months in the labor camp of Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin, where he became seriously ill, an episode that would have strong influence on his later art.

When their house was destroyed for the "Festung Haarlem" in 1944, they moved to the Lorenzkade, and Anton assisted his father building "noodkachels" (emergency stoves).

During the Hunger Winter Anton supplemented the family income by selling some works; he made signboards for local businesses in town and printed posters and cartoons.

According to Heyting's biographer, Heyboer had come to Borger after being inspired by reading the letters of Theo and Vincent van Gogh and wanted to come to Drenthe to see the countryside himself.

[2] Heyboer was so popular with women that they needed to put an alarm near the entrance of the "Groene Kruis" house they were painting in, in order to keep girlfriends from walking in unannounced.

In 1949 Anton held his first exhibition together with the painter Jan Kagie in "Het Luifeltje", and he was seen from that moment as a true artist by the city of Haarlem and became eligible for the SBBK subsidy from 1950 to 1958.

In the spring of 1951 Anton helped form a new arts group called De Groep that split off from Kunst zij ons doel.

Anton Heyboer had to leave Henkes printshop and took shelter a few doors down in the attic of Henri Boot, where he set up a workshop and called himself "Mari".

[9] He gave lessons and received artists in two conjoined houses on the Klein Heiligland that according to period accounts, were filthy and infested with rats.

[9] Despite his lifestyle, or perhaps because of it, he had many registered students, such as Josef Santen, Jules Chapon (who worked across the street), Wim Steyn, Poppe Damave, Otto B. de Kat and Kees Verwey.

The success of Heyboer's art did not result in a happier marriage; after convincing Erna to live on a boat again they moved to Amsterdam supposedly en route southwards.

The prospect of spending a cold winter on board the boat with a baby made Erna decide to leave and in the fall of 1958 she returned to Haarlem with Marcelle and in 1959 they divorced so that Anton could marry his new love Yvonne.

His marriage with Yvonne only lasted until halfway through 1960 and in the fall of that year he moved with his new love Maria to a farmhouse in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel.

After receiving training as a draughtsman, Heyboer made works consisting of landscape drawings and cartoon illustrations, later creating etching plates that he then sold on to printers.

In 1962 he received the Ohara Museum Prize in the 3rd International Biennale of Prints in Tokyo, Japan, and in 1964 the "Accademia Fiorentina delle arte del disegno" of Florence made him "Academico Onorario classe incisione".

[12] The Dutch comedian André van Duin paid a visit to the Heyboer Den Ilp homestead in 1996 and included it in his comedy TV show in his role as meneer Wijdbeens.