'The painter of Giethoorn' was the nickname of Piet Zwiers. He was born in Meppel in 1907 and lived and worked almost all his life in the north of Overijssel, first in Steenwijk and then in Giethoorn. This village and the surrounding landscape form the basis of numerous paintings and watercolors: the canals with their characteristic high bridges, pollard willows in a meadow, eel traps in the Belterwiede. Zwiers also painted a number of French and North African landscapes, flower still lifes and portraits.