Cees Elzinga

About me

Woodblock prints

About me

I was born in Hilversum, The Netherlands, in 1950.

In 1965, I left my parental home and worked for several years as a farmhand. Later, I studied agriculture. In the seventies, I married, became a father of two children and studied psychology and mathematics. A Ph.D. was obtained in the social sciences at the University of Nijmegen in 1985. Subsequently, I worked as a sales and marketing manager in laser printing and semi-conductors and, having become a sworn yacht broker, as a manager of a yacht brokerage until, in 2002, I went back to academia in Amsterdam. There, I worked in social demography and computer science until 2015.

From 2014 till 2018, I was a student at the Classic Art Academy in Groningen and was taught by, a.o., Peter Durieux, Piet Sebens and Siemen Dijkstra. In 2017, I decided to focus on graphic art and soon, to specialize in woodblock printing. The results are presented on this website and through a regularly published newsletter.

Regularly, I try to talk to my hero’s Francis Bacon, Léon Spilliaert, Horst Janssen and Jean Rustin. But they are not easy to get in touch with; I hope I make them smile now and then.

Since 1994,  I live, with my partner and our cats, near Heerenveen in the Northern part of The Netherlands, a region where I spend a formative part of my youth with my beloved grandparents. My studio takes half of the ground floor of our house in Oudeschoot. My children have children and live in Nijmegen and Barcelona.