Katwijks Museum

Hommage to Krijn Giezen (1939-2011)

Krijn Giezen was born in Noordwijk aan Zee in 1939. He studied at the Royal Academy for Arts and Design in The Hague from 1956 to 1961. Krijn Giezen felt himself in heart and soul to be a painter, an impressionist. He was an admirer of Monet, but also of the artists who worked in Katwijk around the 1900’s.
Giezen painted in watercolours and oils, but eventually found linen stretched on a canvas too static for him. Then a fellow student showed him the work of the Spanish artist Antoni Tapiès (1923). The work of Tapiès inspired Krijn to start using old pieces of cloth and used clothing, especially jeans, in his own work. It became a sort of New Realism. Giezen graduated from Art School with a tapestry for which he received from the Pulchri Studio in the Hague the renowned Jacob Maris prize for the category design.

He felt at home in the fishing village of Katwijk, among the fishermen, it fascinated him. At least once a year he even went to sea with them. When Krijn rented an atelier in Katwijk at the end of the 1960’s, he began to cycle every day back and forth from Noordwijk aan Zee to Katwijk aan Zee. The atelier was in the attic of an old shipper’s shed that was formally used for repairing the fishing-nets, a process called ‘boeten’. Thus he called it the ‘boet - attic’. This was hired from the village grave-digger, Van der Plas.
At lunch-time he went to the fish-smoking business next door, Rokerij Schaap of Jan van Duijn, which was beter known as the ‘Corkscrew’ because of the form of the hooks on which the fish were hung up to be smoked. In Katwijk, Kring also started to use sail-cloth, rope, horse-blankets and leather in his work.

From the many commissions that he got from businesses in Katwijk, it was apparent that the Katwijkers had taken Krijn into their hearts. Thus for the ‘Fish-shop Schuitemaker’ he made packing paper on which one could see how Dutch herring (preserved in a barrel of brine) could be cleaned up for consumption. He also made a large herring out of metal for the shop front on the Rederijstraat. Schuitemaker and Giezen became friends. For the shipping-business Parlevliet of Katwijk, he made a calendar each year in which he not only used photographs in the typography but also his own hand writing. He also produced work concerned with the local fish-smoking business.

The first series were developed from object trouvée. Krijn found all around, various fish smoking-ovens of different design, of which he made photographs. This series was exhibited in 1976, and subsequently bought, by the City Museum of The Hague (Gemeentemuseum Den Haag). Later he went on to design metal smoking-ovens himself. In addition to these ovens Krijn made a well known grill in the form of a fish that could be used lying flat or vertically.

Krijn Giezen liked to work with craftsmen, artisans whose old techniques he could incorporate into his own work. Techniques such as those used when knotting and repairing fish-nets resulted among other things in handbags made from knitted fish-net. The bags were made by hand by the Katwijker Leen Vooys.
To prevent the disappearance of the old techniques and trades and to show that they were not that difficult, Krijn liked to make instruction manuals- under the title ‘Simple, that’s how it’s done / that’s how you do it’.
For the Dutch Fishers Association he designed a functional gift - a long lasting fish made of wood on which fishermen could scrape their boots off!

Krijn said once about his work: It’s not something out of the ordinary –just everyday, normal.


André Groeneveld

With thanks to Martina Giezen for the conversation on the 3rd of september 2011, about the artist Krijn Giezen and his work,