Harrie Geelen: Netherlands Illustrator

The only thing you're allowed to teach children is doubt.

Harrie Geelen

Versatile would be a good description of the talented Dutch illustrator, Harrie Geelen. Born in 1939 in Heerlen, Netherlands, Geelen is also a film director, animator, songwriter, translator, writer, and poet. He spent his high school years at the Bernardinus gymnasium in Heerlen and studied Dutch language and literature at the University of Amsterdam. During this time, he was a cabaret performer, together with his future spouse, the author Imme Dros.

For several years Geelen worked as a creative director at Toonder Studios, designing animated films, writing scripts and songs, and directing films and series such as the successful Oebele (1970). He earned several Edison awards. Not only did television work provide Geelen with several meritorious awards, it also greatly influenced his writing and illustrating.

Geelen's lively sketch-like drawings bring to mind images from animated films. His illustrations usually begin with black and white link drawings, often whimsical and sometimes caricature-like, with the addition of color adding expressionistic dynamics. He uses pen and ink, gouache, and watercolor, and has even experimented with computer-generated images in his illustrations. Critic Bregje Boonstra wrote of Geelen's work, "His works are distinctive for their generous, rather rough, pencil-drawn strokes and warm, sunny colors. Geelen's figures are unmistakable. Their toddlers' feet stand firmly on the ground and their basic shape is square … Geelen's text is as delicately precise as his strokes are nonchalant. The toddler's world, which the author evokes in sparsely formulated sentences, is based on accurate and loving observations … Here we have an author who holds his young public in such high esteem that he wants them to see the joys and burdens of the art of writing through sparkling sentences and unaffected pictures."

Geelen has had over 170 works published in 9 languages, many by his wife, author Imme Dros. His works have received numerous awards and recognitions, including the Silver Slate Pencil and Golden Paintbrush.