Harry Geelen

Biography

Harry Geelen (b. 1939) is an artistic jack-of-all-trades. He is currently creative director of Toonder Studios, where he makes cartoon films and commercials. He adapts operas for children and illustrates the texts for his wife, the famous children’s books author Imme Dros, and others. The computer experiments for Juffrouw Kachel (Miss Stove) by Toon Tellegen set him off on a new track, and won him a Silver Slate Pencil. He was awarded a Golden Pencil in 1995 for his illustrations in Het beertje Pippeloentje by Annie M.G. Schmidt. Geelen began to write his own texts to go with his illustrations for the three books about Gijs and his dog Flop. He received a Silver Slate Pencil in 1996 for De plant van Jan and once again in 1999 for Herman het kind en de dingen. In 1995 he published Jan en het gras.

Titles

John’s Book

(Het boek van Jan, 2000)

Harrie Geelen is regarded as one of the most important Dutch illustrators. His works are distinctive for their generous, rather rough pencil-drawn strokes and warm, sunny colours. Geelen’s figures are unmistakable. Their toddlers’ feet stand firmly on the ground and their basic shape is square. The top of the heads are chopped off – as if the crown is missing – and then covered with bright tufts of spiky hair. Continued...