Text taken from the website Art Centre Haarlem: Leon Spierenburg, son of painter Leendert Spierenburg, was born in 1952 in the town of Spaarndam, a small village near Haarlem. He has been allocated as one of the best Dutch contemporary realists for over 30 years. From 1968 to 1971 he studied at the Rietveld Academie after which he began exhibiting still lifes and landscapes. His hang to figurative spherical art and the preference for classical subjects such as landscapes, sea- and harbour faces can be attributed to the influence of his father. In the early days of his painting career, Leon was inspired by still life painters from Haarlem, but soon he found his own characteristic painting style. A painting by Léon Spierenburg is immediately recognisable by the intimacy and austerity in which all the superfluous is omitted. The artist is expressly limited in his colours, in grey and earth tones, which creates a sober but also intimate atmosphere.