Doeve, Eppo - 1 Original strip - Het Mannetje Bagatel - 1946

Eppo Doeve (born in 1907) was a famous Indonesian-born illustrator and cartoonist who spent his youth under Dutch colonial rule in his homeland, but lived most of his adult life largely in the Netherlands. He was a political cartoonist and illustrated many book covers, advertisements and Dutch banknotes. Doeve also developed a renowned reputation as a painter.

He made several illustrations for the magazine of the Wageningen Student Corps. Unfortunately, in 1929 the Wall Street Crash occurred, bringing a severe global economic crisis. The Great Depression also caused the collapse of the Indonesian tea market, which completely changed Doeve’s life path. Given his love for the Netherlands, he wanted to stay there and thus chose a graphic career. He had already done some work for the Amsterdam advertising agency De la Mar and continued to illustrate advertisements for them even then.

In 1933 Doeve became a political cartoonist for the magazine De Groene Amsterdammer. After three years he moved as a freelancer to De Haagse Post. His illustrations also appeared in De Radiobode, the official journal of the Dutch radio network AVRO. One of his colleagues there was Eelco ten Harmsen van der Beek, from whom he learned a great many valuable skills. Doeve illustrated the 'Paul van Vlaanderen' series alternately with Henk Gijsbers and Henk Albers. His graphic work also appeared in Het Handelsblad and De Telegraaf, and after World War II further in Vrij Nederland. His longest collaboration was with Elseviers Weekblad (later Elsevier), for which he drew cartoons from 1946 until his death in 1983.

Doeve designed murals, stage sets and costumes, postage stamps, portraits, paintings and sculptures. He created beautiful advertising posters for various companies. Two of the most famous were the waiter carrying a serving tray with Heineken beer and a drawing with penguins for the Amsterdam zoo Artis. Doeve’s drawings adorned the covers of many Prisma pocket novels. Yet most Dutch people in the 1950s knew him as the designer of a new series of banknotes. Each banknote depicted the head of a famous historical figure from Dutch history, such as Hugo Grotius (10 guilders), Herman Boerhaave (20 guilders), Christiaan Huygens (25 guilders), Desiderius Erasmus (100 guilders) and Rembrandt van Rijn (1000 guilders). Later in his life Doeve even designed parodies of these notes with the heads of football champion Johan Cruyff or Zwarte Piet. Doeve was an exceptionally graphic talent, despite never having attended art school. He was ambidextrous and could even draw upside down if necessary. Doeve received so many commissions that he never had to worry about his income. The only drawback was that he usually worked for other people rather than producing his own work..

As a comic artist he created two text strips ('Het Mannetje Bagatel', 1946, and 'Kleine Isar, de Vierde Koning', 1962), with text by novelist Bertus Aafjes. The versatile illustrator earned a lot of appreciation from colleagues, although he never had any formal artistic training.
In 1946 their fairy-tale strip 'Het Mannetje Bagatel' appeared in De Volkskrant. It ran from June 4 to October 7, 1946 (from September 17 under the title 'Bagatel’s Kinder-cabaret').

Remarkably for a self-taught artist, he also won several awards for his work. In 1955 he received the National Outdoor Advertising Award and in 1973 he was knighted in the Order of Orange-Nassau.

Doeve died on June 11, 1981 at the age of 73. He was held in high esteem among fellow artists and had a strong influence on people such as Marten Toonder, Rudy van Giffen, Jan Kruis, Martin Lodewijk, Peter van Straaten and Fiep Westendorp. For those interested in his life and career, the book 'In Remembrance of Eppo Doeve' (1907-1981) by Jop Euwijk is warmly recommended.

This lot contains an original daily strip from Het Mannetje Bagatel, one of the only two text strips that Doeve made. The daily strip is beautifully drawn in the recognizable style that Eppo Doeve so typified. Original drawings by Eppo Doeve are extremely rare.

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