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I was born in 1949. I am married to Ineke and we have two daughters. I spent my childhood in Rotterdam IJsselmonde, an historical district. On Saturdays I spent a lot of time at the IJsselmondse hoofd, a viewing spot on the waterway in Rotterdam, to see the activities of the far end of the harbour and river. During that period I made drawings of ships from photographs which my father collected for me. Much of the subjects drawn, were ships of the Holland America Line. Later, during my studies, I worked for six weeks as a temp on the SS Rotterdam. In that time I didn't realise that I was part of an historical period in the Dutch merchant marine being the time when the last beautiful Dutch merchant ships were operational. Shortly after that time the container ships appeared and the ships body lines became less attractive.

My wife brought me back into painting when she gave me some tubes with oil paint and an commission. It was her wish for me to paint the SS Statendam which was so damaged during the bombardment of 1940. That was the beginning for me and I got a lot of satisfaction in painting it. I steadily improved over the years and back in 1987 I started to exhibit my paintings which got a lot of positive reactions, and which is still the case today.

The ships from the merchant marine of the 50's and 60's can be seen as the
highlight of the Dutch cultural inheritance.
Although that period is a relatively short while ago, nothing is left and all disappeared quietly.
It is bizarre that a lot of effort is paid to keep historical buildings intact and that nothing is left of the historical legacy of  recent shipping. A branch of industry with nearly 40,000 Dutch employees has nearly vanished. Ships from that time are demolished, sold, burned or sunk. Who still remembers the names of the nice ships of the VNS, all with the names ending like xxxxxkerk or the beauties of the KNSM or the xxxxxdam's and xxxxxdijk's of the H.A.L.?.

The above led me to the firm decision to devote my art of painting to the merchant marine. At this moment my time is limited but I certainly will extend the range of my new paintings to the British Merchant Navy later.