Mr Rolf Weijburg
Information about the artist

We are happy to introduce a fantastic versatile artist and printmaker from the Netherlands, Rolf Weijburg. With remarkable perception and skills as a graphic artist and printmaker, Weijburg brings to the viewer images that combine the geography, flora and fauna, architecture, and the people of the places he explores.

Rolf Weijburg was born in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, in 1952. While studying social geography and cartography at the University of Utrecht, Weijburg became interested in printmaking and graphic arts, and switched to the Academy of Fine Arts.

Following the tradition of many Dutch artists since the 17^th century who traveled abroad, Weiburg has traveled throughout Africa and the Middle-East. His travels are an integral part of his work, providing him with an endless flow of inspiration. Weijburg makes many sketches en route, takes photographs and makes audio-recordings of sounds encountered. These records on paper, film, and tape become the working material for the etchings when the artist returns to his studio in Utrecht, Holland, where he lives with his wife and 2 daughters.

Rolf Weijburg on his art:

"My prints tell stories by melding images and diagrams of the geography, animals, plants, architecture, and the people of the places I explore."

Colourful, superbly designed and excellently executed colour etchings by Rolf Weijburg are now for sale at BestNetArt Artgallery. You can find examples of the art in this document and more in the Gallery. In his pictures we see a mixture of people and places, plants, animals and landscapes, architecture and everyday life from distant places in Africa, Middle East and South East Asia. Rolf Weijburg likes to work on projects and series, and we have now been able to get prints from the “Local Beauties” and “L’Afrique Périphérigue”- series. To travel is an integral part of his work, providing him with an endless flow of inspiration, and we hope you will be inspired by his work - step right into our Gallery and have a look. 

 

 Local Beauty 4: Mopti, Mali - Colour etching by Rolf Weijburg.
 

Local Beauties
The inspiration for the fantastic series of prints called "Local Beauties" comes from years ago when the artist received a postcard from Sri Lanka. The card was divided into four rectangles with ladies in local dress in each rectangle. One stood next to a house, one on a beach, one was standing in a forest and one had just stopped picking tea. It was an old-fashioned postcard with colors that might have been applied by hand. In the middle it read: Local Beauties.
For years, this card hung on the wall in the artist's house. Now the card has got lost. But it's title has been preserved. The series, started in 1996, is still alive and new prints are made from time to time.

Local Beauties 9: N´Kongsamba - Colour etching by Rolf Weiburg

Home
When you travel as much as Rolf Weijburg the meaning of "Home" must be quite special. The "Home" series was started upon his return from one of his long trips, this time from Yemen in 1992 with the color-etching ‘Home: Shibam, Hadramawt’.

"It is a series about houses and about where home is. The houses they consist of, the people who live in them. Home away from Home" as Rolf explains.

This series is still growing as a result of the continuing trips made "away from home" by Rolf Weijburg.

"Africa is not my home and will never be. But I'm always homesick for Africa"

L'Afrique Périphérique
Rolf Weijburg started out making an illustrated atlas of Africa but soon found out that this would be an impossible task. He decided to limit the scope to include only the islands surrounding Africa. Even this limitation lead to the birth of 85 outstanding etchings - "The Atlas of the Islands around Africa". It took Rolf on his numerous journeys to all the inhabited islands and island groups around Africa between 1981 and 1998. These journeys provided the artist with the inspiration for a large series of etchings showing the immense diversity of all these bits of Africa.
Rolf Weijburg was awarded the Dutch National Prize for the Graphic Arts in 1992, for the etchings of this series up to that point.

All of the 85 color etchings plus sketches, photographs and accompanying travel stories (in Dutch) are published in the book ‘L' Afrique Périphérique – Een Atlas van de Eilanden rond Afrika’.

Other info about Rolf Weijburg
Rolf has also over the years illustrated many books, some of which have been written by his wife Catherine Cazier
Many articles in newspapers have been written about Rolf and his art some of which are: NRC Handelsblad, de Telegraaf, Ulysses (F), Diario de Noticias (Portugal) and Princeton Packet (USA). He has also written articles about far away countries to newspapers himself. 

"Quoerimba" - Colour etching from the series LÀfrique Périphérigue by Rolf Weijburg

Commissioned work
As a well known and respected artist Rolf Weijburg is often asked to do commissioned work. This can be an edition of etchings, a drawing, watercolor or series of such or pastel work. The size and form can vary from very small to very big. These works can span from book illustrations, brochures and annual reports, to art for cruiser ships.

Here we see the artist work on one of his big-sized commissioned works.

Atlas of the World´s twenty smallest countries
Today Rolf Weijburg is working on another large series of etchings which will have the world's twenty smallest independent countries as a subject. This will again take Rolf for extensive traveling and we hope to be able to present some of the work from this series later.