Johan Braakensiek artwork • painting • for sale The dance of traditional costumes

Johan Braakensiek from Amsterdam was a very popular and prolific illustrator. In addition to lithographs for books, he made many political cartoons for Dutch and foreign daily and weekly newspapers. In 1886 he started working for the magazine 'De Groene Amsterdammer' for which he made a large and small drawing every week. Because of a congenital deafness, he had a poor learning ability, he was dropped from school at the age of 11 to become a pattern designer. In 1873 his talent was noticed by the editor of the 'Algemeen Handelsblad', who enabled him to study at the Academy of Visual Arts. There he studied from 1876 to 1881 under August Allebé, Jan Baptist Tetar van Elven and Bernard Wijnveld. In addition to the many illustrations, Braakensiek also painted small genre pieces in a fluid and decorative style.