Harriet van Reek - Author / Illustrator talk on illustrations, inspirations and techniques

Harriet will examine the making of her book Het dierenboekje Mie/ Mie’s Animal Book, (2021) which has recently been translated into Japanese, ミーのどうぶつＢＯＯＫ (2023). Harriet will also discuss the strong philosophies that underpin this book and others, Letter Soup and Lena Iena, showing how picture books can carry deep and meaningful ideas.  

Bio: I live in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, a rather industrial city along the river Maas. My first picture-book ‘The Adventures of Lena Lena was published when I was 28. Although I was a beginner in the picture-book world, educated as a graphic designer and art teacher, it won the Golden Pen, a prestigious prize here in the lowlands. Since then a book from my hand is published about every 4 or 5 years. My two last ones- ‘Mie’s animal book- was translated in Japanese in 2023 and a picture book about the life of Hilma af Klint will come out on the 6th of October this year. In general I write and illustrate books myself, except for the book ‘Egg! Egg!:The wonderful journey of two eggs and a puppet theatre’ (2018) for which text and illustrations were made completely together through working with the collage-technique. 

My books have won several gold and silver medals, and some have been published in other languages. Besides making picture books, I make drawings, illustrations for magazines, posters and experiment with weaving and ceramics and I did and still do, since 1985, a lot of different art-projects in collaboration with my working-companion Geerten Ten Bosch, such as: experimental puppet theatre for television, textile-art, performances in the public space and object- theatre for adults, a lot of drawings and, as I just wrote, we did a picture book together, with podcast. My ( and our) work has been exhibited in different museums and galleries in and outside the Netherlands. Since 2002 I also work as an art teacher at the University of the arts ArtEZ, at the illustration-design department, where I teach students to play and to draw. You can see some of my works on my website at www.harrietvanreek.nl.

Zoom links for this event will be emailed a couple of days before the event to those who register.