Rien Poortvliet artwork • watercolour • drawing • previously for sale A Jay feeding it's young
Rien Poortvliet
Schiedam 1932-1995 Soest
1932-1995
A Jay feeding it's young
ink, watercolour and gouache on paper 24.0 x 34.0 cm, signed l.r.
This work on paper was previously for sale.
Rien Poortvliet, made famous for his Gnome books, was a skilled and clever draftsman and painter of animals in the wild. Starting out as a book illustrator, he made albums from the 1970s with only drawings and watercolors of birds and other forest animals, clarified with a short text. He called them 'Kijkboek' (Look book): large-format educational plate works in which certain subjects were portrayed in all their aspects. His animal images were preceded by thorough preliminary studies and long-term observations in nature. Poortvliet strived to make his paintings, drawings and watercolours a story in themselves. He therefore called himself a 'drawing storyteller'. In 1992 the Rien Poortvliet Museum was opened in Middelharnis, entirely devoted to his work.