See a list of the latest updates to the Nico Bulder site.
05/15/2019: Added a number of small illustrations that Hendrik Veenhof recently provided to “Logos, Vignettes, Letterheads” gallery .
02/23/2019: Added to “WWII” and “Events & Occasions” gallery the “Burgerwacht” charter given to Nico Bulder himself and to “Events & Occasions” the “Heil den Lezer” in orange brown color, both courtesy Groninger Museum. Also added to “Saints, Myths & Biblical” gallery an early version engraving of the four Apocalypse horsemen, courtesy Groninger Museum.
02/07/2019: After an additional delay, finally continued with the website. Added a photo of Hendrik Veenhof as student in 1960 to his memories.
10/15/2017: While on vacation in The Netherlands hurricane Irma toppled a few 100 year old oaks close to my house; one of those cut my house in two. This caused some delay in continuing to build this website. But today I could start again. During this vacation we also renewed the contacts with the Groninger Museum. They have quite a large collection of Nico Bulder art works. They shared with us the low-res photos that they already made in the past. I added two unknown ones in the “Buildings” gallery, more will come later. In 2018 the Groninger Museum will start a project to make high-res photos of all their art including all their art of Nico Bulder. They promised to share those pictures with us when they become available.
08/03/2017: Added 1936 Schiermonnikoog drawing and stone litho print of the Anloo church to “Landscapes & Buildings” gallery from Veenkoloniaal Museum collection. Also added Hendrik Veenhof’s “joint project Lazarov/Bulder” ex libris to his memories and updated the introduction text.
07/17/2017: Improved introduction text and added dedicated galleries to “Occasional Art”; also added various art pieces from Veenkoloniaal Museum collection.
07/16/2017: Added Nico Bulder’s 1935 New Year’s card fold to Occasional Art gallery and added two illustrations to Hendrik Veenhof’s memories.
07/11/2017: Updated the starting page of the “Memories” section and added a few pictures to Evert Musch’s memories/speech where those art works were referenced in his text.
07/10/2017: Happy to add New Year’s card 1954 to “Events & Occasions”. We are still missing a few in the series, but making progress. Also started to add the illustrations of the school book “Het Wijde Leven – 12”; first eight done, the rest later.
07/09/2017: Added Opus 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107 and 108 to the “Ex Libris” gallery.
07/06/2017: Added a number of titles and years to paintings in”Still Lifes, Gouache and Other” with input from Hendrik Veenhof. According to Evert Musch, the still lifes were made during Nico Bulder’s Minerva student years. The flowers still life is a very early work probably from before the Minerva student years.
06/29/2017: Replaced the Dutch version of Hendrik Veenhof’s “stories about Nico and Evert” in “About Nico” by translated version in English. A friend of Hendrik arranged the translation.
06/23/2017: Added the Kalevala illustrations to the “Book Illustrations” gallery.
06/14/2017: Added Opus 75 back in to “About Nico Bulder”; somehow it was accidentally omitted. Also added Opus 104 to provide an example of a more subdued style in contrast with the Apocalypse horseman engraving. Re-arranged the layout of the page and added link to Tim’s other website that tells the story of Ergo. Added Opus 104 also to the Ex Libris gallery.
06/07/2017: Added link to some funny stories (written by Hendrik Veenhof) in “About Nico Bulder” section; added Koos Schuur’s poem with accompanying captivating wood engraving of rider protecting his candle flame against the brutal elements to “Poem illustrations” and added detailed New Year’s card “volbreng met vrucht, de verre vlucht” to “Art for Occasions” section and “Landscapes” section.
06/06/2017: Received “Hommage aan Nico Bulder” (“Gereformeerd Gezinsblad Sep 26, 1964) from Jan Kuiper and added this to the “About Nico Bulder” section.
05/31/2017: Made a number of minor corrections and expanded the text “About Nico Bulder”, added the symbolism explanation to the ex libris of Evert Musch with input from Hendrik Veenhof. Also added the brief analysis of the Apocalypse paintings written by Jan Kuiper of the Veenkoloniaal Museum Veendam (NL). Added images 20106, 20127, 20362 and 20520 to “Ships” and 20520 also to “Biblical” section.
05/29/2017: Started to work on the latest batch of photos that the Veenkoloniaal Museum in Veendam so graciously sent us: added 6 oil paintings in “Still Lifes & Other Paintings”, added a superb wood engraving of one of the Apocalypse horsemen to various sections including the “About Nico Bulder” section and added two “cartoonish” aquarelles to “events & Occasions”. Also added the oil painting of Jacob’s struggle with the Angel to the Biblical section. Notice the beautiful mysterious blue light along the mountains in the background. Expanded the “About Nico Bulder” section with more text and references and provided a better closure by including his last unfinished art work.
05/13/2017: Added Opus 67 (Dr. K. Bos, 1942) and updated the ex libris file “persoonsgegevens” (background info on the persons for whom Nico Bulder made ex libris illustrations) in response to feedback from Dr. Bos’ son.
03/16/2017: Exchanged self portrait in “About” from B/W to color.
03/15/2017: Added Salammbô section to “Book illustrations”.
03/14/2017: Added link to “datacollectie Nederland” and updated Home page. Also started to work on SEO.
03/13/2017: Added a new section in “About Nico Bulder” showing examples of blocks and litho stones and their associated end result prints, some from private collection LH and some from collection Veenkoloniaal Museum in Veendam (NL); also added an additional photo of Nico Bulder looking through a magnifying glass also from collection Veenkoloniaal Museum in Veendam.
03/12/2017: Added Opus 109, 110, 11, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118 including details about the persons who commissioned the ex libris art works and added picture of Groningen coat of arms to “About Nico Bulder” section where it is mentioned in the text. Also added the superb illustration to Jan de Boer’s volume of poems to “Poem Illustrations”, “Landscapes” and the “Home” page.
03/11/2017: Added Opus 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127 and 128 including details about the persons who commissioned the ex libris art works. Also added Nico Bulder’s monogram to “Ex Libris” and a link to Tim van de Vall’s website in the “About Nico Bulder” section.
03/10/2017: Added Opus 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 138A, 139, and 140 including details about the persons who commissioned the ex libris art works.
03/09/2017: Added Opus 141, 142, 143, 144 and 145 including details about the persons who commissioned the ex libris art works. Also added more info on the person Nico Bulder in “About Nico Bulder” based upon various conversations with Hendrik Veenhof.
03/08/2017: Added Nico Bulder’s three other personal ex libris, Opus 45, Opus 12 and an unnumbered Opus; special thanks to Hendrik Veenhof who relayed the detailed explanations that were provided to him long ago by Evert Musch.
03/07/2017: Added Opus 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153, 154, 155 and 157 including details about the persons who commissioned the ex libris art works.
03/06/2017: Added more in-depth explanation of Opus 75 in Ex Libris section; also added more info on Nico Bulder Stichting in “About Nico Bulder” section including the ex libris made by Pam Rueter for the NBS.
01/14/2017: Expanded text in “Ex libris” category and added multiple ex libris pictures to the gallery. Also added included NB’s latest ex libris enlarged in text and did the same for Kea Homan’s one in her memories.
01/12/2017: Expanded text in “About Nico Bulder” to include scratchboard (or scraperboard) technique. Added reference to this technique to two pictures in “Christmas” section. Added Opus 28, 38 and 100 to “Ex Libris” category.
01/01/2017: Added reference to VKM for pictures received from them. Also added two more Christmas pictures and another picture of Jozeph, Maria and Jezus escaping to Egypt.
12/19/2016: Completed the memories of Willy Bethlehem and added a dedicated Christmas gallery and a 1934/1935 “Voor het Kind” gallery.
11/20/2016: Added two NB photos, qouache painting, another nice farm artwork and two etchings from around 1950 of a Tjasker mill and a tree.
08/07/2016: Thanks to Hendrik’s input, we could add subtexts to the images that we added a few days ago.
08/04/2016″ Added 19 images from the VKM collection: 5x Hoogezand in “Landscapes”, text “Heil den Lezer…” in “Evert Musch memories”, “Poems” and “Occasions”, 6x various in “Landscapes” (weggetje en sloot, hunebedstenen in bos, molen, 2x Anloo church, farm) and 7x preliminary sketches in “Saints etc.” of Mozes and Jacob and the Angel.
07/27/2016: Added the original Dutch version of Hendrik Veenhof’s memories to his memories section.
07/23/2016: Added the English translation of Evert Musch’s memorable speech to his “memories” section; also corrected the text in one of his photos.
07/14/2016: Added missing titles to Anne Huitema’s art.
07/11/2016: Added “Memories of Evert Musch” to the “Memories” section; we included two photos of Evert Musch, Nico’s good friend and colleague and the speech that Evert Musch gave for the Nico Bulder memorial exhibition in the Groninger Museum in 1964. We also added four more pictures of the art of Anne Huitema under his “Memories” section.
06/29/2016: Rearranged the “Landscapes” gallery to give more prominence to the dedicated sections, while adding the special gallery of old Hoogezand pen drawings.
06/27/2016: Thanks to the efforts of Hendrik Veenhof and his friends we could add an English translation of Anne Huitema’s memories to the “Memories” section. We also added some background info on Anne Huitema and a few examples of his art.
06/25/2016: Added the memories of Anne Huitema to the “Memories” section. Added two missing etchings to the “Nederlandse Spoorwegen” subsection under “Landscapes”: “Barn in Ter Wupping” and “Noordbroek”. Furthermore, we added three poem illustrations shown together with the actual poems: “Ballade Fan It Spylske Hus”, “”Gedicht van Jan Boer” and “Lied van Jan Sems” by Herman de Boer. We also added two St. George illustrations to “Biblical”, an engraving and etching.
06/11/2016: Added the memories of Jan A. Niemeijer to the “Memories” section. Re-arranged and updated the text in “Landscapes” and added two subsections that feature the Groningen pen-drawings and another one showing the etchings Nico Bulder made for the Dutch railways company (“Nederlandse Spoorwegen”).
05/21/16: Added the memories of Hendrik Veenhof to the “Memories” section. Also added a better quality version of the “mare with her colt” etching reprinted posthumously by Reinder Homan and a different print of the beautiful image of St. Christopher with baby Jesus. Furthermore, we added various versions of the small river Aa in the “Landscapes” category.
04/29/16: Added “Christ and the adulterous woman” to “Biblical category”.
04/17/16: Expanded the “Correspondence” category to include Evert Musch’s openings speech of September 19, 1964 on occasion of the Nico Bulder commemorative exhibition in the “Groninger Museum”.
04/15/16: Added “Still Lifes” to Art submenu and uploaded first still life of mortar, pestle and pot.
04/10/16: Uploaded detailed “Dead hare” pencil drawing to “Animals”, “Horseman in forest” litho, “Coendersborg” litho, “Groningen landscape” aquarel and “Farm shed” red crayon drawing to “Landscapes”, “Good Samaritaan” wood engraving and “Tobias and The Angel” litho to “Biblical” and stained glass design for Instituut Hommes to “Stained Glass & Monuments”.
03/21/16: We uploaded another article written by Mr. Hendrik Veenhof. It provides a good overview of the techniques used by Nico Bulder. You can find the link to the article halfway in the text body in the “Home” section. John Friedrichs took care of the English translation. Move your mouse to the brown colored words “click here” and press the left mouse button. When you click on the link the article is available in pdf format. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to see and print the file. Adobe Acrobat Reader can be downloaded for free. We also changed the linking mechanism for the other articles written by Mr. Hendrik Veenhof. The intermediate step of going to the “Comments” page has been deleted and the articles are directly available after clicking on the link (which are the words “click here” that have a different font color than the rest of the text; on my computer screen the words of the link are brown, while the other text is black).
03/10/16: Uploaded two large wood engravings: the Freylemaborg in Slochteren posthumously printed by Anne Huitema (in Buildings & Landscapes) and an June 26 1947 In Memoriam for Adriaan Geerts (in Events & Occasions) both from private collection LH. Click here for more info on this 17th century entrepreneur who helped establish the towns of Wildervank and Veendam.
03/04/16: Added the “Anloo church mystery” to the “Landscapes & Buildings” gallery. Also uploaded to the media library the updated versions of the files mentioned below and an additional file that lists all poem illustrations. The files are accessible via the corresponding sections.
02/28/16: Thanks to Mr. Hendrik Veenhof, we could upload three files to the website’s media library: “Boek illustraties” (“Book illustrations”), “Vrije prenten” (Art made bij Nico Bulder on his own initiative, mostly biblical illustrations) and “Ex libris persoonsgegevens” (Background info on the persons for whom Nico Bulder made ex libris illustrations). Additionally, links were created in the corresponding sections to allow visitors to download these files in pdf format.
02/15/16: Expanded the back ground information on the illustrations posted yesterday with good feedback received from Hendrik Veenhof.
02/14/16: Uploaded 7 illustrations: 1959 New Year’s card header and Groningen city coat-of-arms to “Events & Occasions”, church bell etching and trees in forest sketch to “Buildings & Landscapes”, “Ballade fan it spylske hus” header to “Poems’, man on horse with dog etching to “Animals” and commemorative “Burgerwacht” charter original wood engraving to WW II “Correspondence”. Also Added several links to this WW II section of “Correspondence”; expanded subtext on “Anloo church” and pencil drawing sketch in “Landscapes & Buildings” gallery.
02/12/16: Uploaded beautiful, very detailed etching of the old church in Anloo, posthumously printed by Anne Huitema from private collection LH. Also added letter by the mayor of Hoogezand-Sappemeer to “Correspondence” expressing his gratitude that Nico Bulder created the commemorative charter for the “Burgerwacht” (militia).
02/07/16: Uploaded three versions of “Jacob wrestling with the Angel” (1935, 1952 & 1962) and “David & Goliath to “Biblical Art” and various pictures to “Events & Occasions”. Added to “Correspondence” the 31.X.1957 letter from Prof. Hubert Woyty-Wimmer to Nico Bulder about copper etching technology.
02/04/16: Started using “X1″ for wood cuts and X2” for wood engraving; added explanation on “Home” page; uploaded four pictures to “Animals” gallery.
02/02/16: Uploaded various pictures to “Events & Occasions” gallery from private collection LH.
01/24/16: Uploaded 13 pen drawings that a young Nico Bulder made of the city of Groningen in 1927; 12 drawings were in the binder, while “Onder den Toren met de Hoofdwacht” was on the cover. Also separated “Animals” and “Landscapes & Buildings” in two separate galleries.
01/23/16: Added the three missing pen drawings of Hoogezand canal scenery that was created by Nico Bulder in 1953 to celebrate the 25 year anniversary of the public library; now all five are included. Also added the shipyard related ones to the “Ships & Shipyards” theme gallery.
01/22/16: Added new category and gallery called “Ships & Shipyards” including the first of five shipyard aquarelles from the collection of the Noordelijk Scheepvaartmuseum in Groningen.
01/21/16: Added two versions of gorgeous 1940 Christmas wood engraving to “Event Illustrations” and “Biblical Art” from private collection LH. From same collection also copper etching of farm with pond in front, pencil drawing of Huis ter Hansouwe and a lighter print of a small farm along a canal with ducks in front that was already on the website (see 11/04/16); this added version is probably a reprint.
01/19/16: Added three wonderful art pieces to “Poem & Prayer Illustrations” from private collection LH:”Tuinman en de Dood” (printed in two colors), “De Ballade van de Klokketoren” and “Gebed van de Ruyter”. Also added a copper etching of a dry creek with farms in the background to “Landscapes & Buildings” also from private collection LH . Added on the Home page a copyright sentence and an explanation about the display resolution of the pictures. Also added a “Burgerwacht” recognition charter and associated mayoral letter and new Nico Bulder photo from private collection AS. Updated text of “In Memoriam”. Added links to “Memories” sections by Professor Crouwel and Ms. Kea Homan to provide background info of these impressive artists (and students of Nico Bulder).
01/12/16: Embedded RTV Noord video in website.
12/19/15: Added “Anloo forest trail” etching from private collection HMS.
11/23/15: Added two beautiful shipyard etchings and a realistic looking piece of free art of a mare with her colt; also added a 1933 article by Johan Schwencke about an upcoming new artist Nico Bulder under “Book Illustrations” and a nice calendar under “Events & Occassions” with Bulder’s most popular illustrations; all from private collections NPT and HMS.
Furthermore, we started to upload memories from people who actually knew Nico Bulder during his life; memories from Prof. Wim Crouwel and Kea Homan were added.
11/16/15: Added “Tuinman en de Dood” poem and illustration; poem by P.N. van Eyck, from private collection NPT and HMS.
11/08/15: Added engravings of a small crab and a donkey at a tree to the Landscapes & Animals gallery and a signed and dated Wuthering Heights “piece tail” / “slotvignet” book illustration to the Book Illustrations header; these three came from private collection HMS.
11/04/15: Added two landscapes from private collection NPT; one has a small farmhouse along a canal with ducks and is dated 29 April 1939 and signed bij Nico Bulder; the other is a landscape of a large tree along a canal without date.
11/03/15: Added New Year’s cards from Nico Bulder himself for the period 1956-1964 from private collection NPT; it is difficult to choose which one is best, they are all marvelous.
10/22/15: Consolidated various art themes under one main “Art” tab on main control bar and also added “Memories” tab to main control bar. When you click on the “Art” tab, a pop-up sub menu with the various themes appears.
10/18/15: Uploaded first batch of Ex Libris from “Schoonheid in ZwartWit”. Also added links to Veenkoloniaal Museum in Veendam and the Nico Bulder Stichting.
10/12/15: Uploaded illustrations of the book “De legenden van Jezus’ Kindsheid”.
10/09/15: Uploaded illustrations of the Dutch translation of Taras Boeljba originally written by N. Gogolj in 1835.
10/06/15: Uploaded following wood engravings from private collection LMV: a young colt, a beautiful 1935 “Ans & Wim van der Kuijlen” Christmas card and a joyful 1961 Nico Bulder New Year’s card that Nico was especially proud of because you could also read it upsidedown. A special thanks to LH who gifted these to LMV.
10/05/15: Edited illustrations of pages 203 and 239 of “Overijsselsch Sagenboek” to remove white line printing errors and uploaded the improved images to the gallery.
10/04/15: Added “printmaking” and “ex libris” links in “About” section. Updated “References” to include “Bulder Opnieuw” and “Nico Bulder 1898-1998”. Also uploaded illustrations of the book “Overijsselsch Sagenboek”, the wood engraving “Het Huys aen de Drie Grachten, Zetel van A.A. Balkema, Boekenverkooper en Uitgever te Amsterdam” (including link) from private collection LMV.
09/27/15: Included updated English text in the “About” section. Also included link to RTV Noord YouTube channel of 1995 TV program of Nico Bulder’s house on the Hoofdstraat in Hoogezand.
09/26/15: Uploaded the first batch of painting photos received from Veenkoloniaal Museum (VKM). Also added a section “Art by Chronological Order” to create a timeline of all art including (early) art when Nico Bulder was trying things out.
09/24/15: Uploaded three Groninger landscapes; two reprints by R. Homan (Anloo and Noordbroek) and one 1944 colored pencil drawing of the Anloo church from private collection LMV. On the rear side of the pencil drawing is hand written: “Getekend in het laatste (onderlijnd) oorlogswinter 44-45, toen de nood groot en de kolen schaars waren.” Translated: “Drawn in the last 44-45 winter of the war when the need was high and coal scarce.”
09/16/15: Added English text and uploaded Apocalypse paintings.
09/15/15: Uploaded illustrations of “Schateiland”, the Dutch translation of Treasure Island originally written by R.L. Stevenson in 1881.
09/15/15: Created “What’s New” Page.
Nico Bulder Art 