Arend, Dirk - 1 Original colour drawing + puzzle - Hiawatha - (jaren 1970)

Dirk Arend van Duijn, usually called Dirk Arend, is a former Dutch cartoonist and illustrator. In the eighties and nineties, he created commercial comic stories and cartoons for various clients.

Early life and career
Dirk Arend was born in 1962 in Katwijk aan Zee. In 1980, he began his career with the newspaper comic strip 'Jan Hagel' in the Leidsch Dagblad (published by Duin en Bollenstreek). He then worked as a comic artist, cartoonist, and character designer for commercial clients, such as the record label Boni Records and its subsidiary Break Records. One of his designs was 'Tico Tac', the alien from the music video of the synthpop single 'Woodpeckers From Space' (1985) by Videokids. The animation was created by Bjørn Frank Jensen, who also made a comic story featuring the character. Dirk Arend's art also appeared in local newspapers in the Leiden and Kennemerland-Zuid regions, published by the Buijze Persgroep.

Olivier Flap
One of the most well-known comic strips by Dirk Arend is 'Olivier Flap', an elephant who lives in the forest with some other animals. It was the mascot of the children's comic and puzzle magazine Happy voor Kids (1994-1995) from the 1990s, published by De Denker. Dirk Arend, along with the house artist Henk van Munster, was the main cartoonist of the magazine, while Koos Verkaik contributed to the scripting. Other characters that Dirk Arend drew for Happy voor Kids included 'Barrie Beer', 'Jopper', and 'Roos'. Years later, Stefan de Groot from Creative Cave Publishers released an eBook featuring one of Olivier Flap's adventures, called 'Olivier Flap Color Adventure'. In the early 2000s, 'Olivier Flap' strips appeared online on various school websites.

Later stripping work
Later in the 1990s, Dirk Arend created the comic 'Dokter Quack' for Telekids Now! (Keesing, 1997-1999), the magazine related to the children's program Telekids. The scripts were written by Wessel Breukelaar. Around the same period, he also created the gag comic 'Charlie' for Penny, a horse magazine for girls. The artist continued working through Studio Babbelstan on developing artworks and concepts aimed at children until back problems forced him to stop drawing. He served as an advisor during the early stages of Striptekenaars.nl (Stefan de Groot) and Striptekenaar.info (Piet Zeeman), two agencies producing comics and other artwork for printed and digital media. For the artwork, these agencies relied on an international network including artists from Argentina (Atilio Millan, Fernando Sosa, Joe Limado), Indonesia (Redy Prio Roedy Rillf, Yuen Eriyama's Studio Dokutoku), Serbia (Bojan M. Djukic), and the Netherlands (Ruud Straatman). In the 1980s, Dirk Engels created four stunning full-color paintings (airbrush technique) for four puzzles by White Horse, the famous puzzle manufacturer, featuring the Native American Hiawatha in the main role.

Toonder expert
Dirk Arend is an expert in the field of classic Dutch comics, especially in the area of the Toonder Studios.

Regarding the current offering
This lot includes one of the four magnificent 'Hiawatha' paintings created by Dirk Arend for puzzle manufacturer White Horse. Just look at the virtuosity Arend applied with airbrush. Fine and virtuosic, only the greatest can achieve this. A stunning painting of museum importance. Paintings of this quality are almost never offered. The painting is signed on the right. The puzzle (see photo 4) is still in its original packaging and is included with this lot.

The painting is packaged with maximum protection and sent to the new owner by registered mail.