About Fiep Westendorp

Fiep Westendorp is a famous Dutch illustrator for children's book. On 17 December 1916, Sophia Maria Westendorp (Fiep as she was called by her family) was born in Zaltbommel as the second child of elementary teacher Willem Westendorp and Hannetta Campagne. Fiep had a brother Joop, born in 1913, and a sister Aja, born in 1919.

As a young child, she loved to draw. Her parents have always been very supportive of her choice of drawing, even though her drawings represented small figures in odd poses.

After elementary school she studied at the local college, where her art-teacher saw no talent whatsoever in Fiep's drawings. Fiep continued her study at the Royal School for Art, Techniques and Trade in Den Bosch and in 1938 she was admitted at the Acadamy of Art in Rotterdam.

For a while she lived with her aunt in Lekkerkerk and moved in with Clara Eggink and Jan Campert in The Hague, where she stayed from 1941 till 1943. All her work at the Art Acadamy was destroyed by a bombardment in 1940. Fiep moved back in with her family during the last years of the war. They were driven out of their house by the Germans, because the town was a strategic spot. The family found shelter at first in Haaften and later in Opijnen, The Netherlands.

In 1945 Fiep permanently moved to Amsterdam, where she established herself as an illustrator and throughout the years she became famous with her extra-ordinary drawings of Jip en Janneke (Bob and Jilly), who were based on the characters of children's book writer Annie M.G. Schmidt.

Fiep Westendorp apparently never got married and she died on February 3, 2004 in Amsterdam, of a pulmonary infection and a heart attack. She was 87 years old.

See also post:
Fiep Westendorp's Work
Fiep Westendorp's Economical Impact