'Wil Niet'. Inktspotprize-winning cartoon from 2005, dealing with the run-up to the referendum for the European constitution. The cartoon depicts Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende force-feeding the constitution to the Dutch people, but getting it spewed back in his face.
Joep Bertrams is a Dutch artist who began his career as a children's book illustrator, but is since the late 1980s best known as a sharp political cartoonist. Besides in his home country, Bertram's award-winning editorial cartoons have also been syndicated in Germany, France and the United States. Bertrams is additionally active as an animator and puppet/background designer for theater and television. He lives and works in Amsterdam.
Early life and career
Joep Bertrams was born in 1946 in Roermond, a town in the Dutch south-eastern province of Limburg. As a child, he had two passions, playing football and drawing. Usually, when it was rainy or cold outside, he spent time behind his drawing board. However, while his uncles were also artists, they discouraged his parents from sending him to the academy, since it was too expensive and didn't guarantee a steady vocation afterwards. Bertrams therefore studied to become a teacher instead, but between 1967 and 1972, he eventually did attend and graduate from the Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague. During this period, he started making drawings for a couple of worker's union magazines. Upon graduation, he was active as a teacher in Breda and later Hoofddorp. Until 2005, Bertrams was additionally active as a teacher at the AKI Academy of Art & Design in Enschede. He eventually gave up this day job, because he sometimes had to spend late nights working on his cartoons, making him stand in front of his classroom sleepy-headed the next day.
Early in his artistic career, Bertrams made many illustrations for children's magazines like Taptoe, Okki and Ezelsoor. He also livened up pages for children's books by Karel Eykman, Veronica Hazelhoff, Imme Dros, Henri van Daele, Wiel Kusters and Ted van Lieshout. One of his most notable book covers was for 'Kom Maar Dichter. 200 Gedichten voor Kinderen' (Altiora, 1990), a collection of poems for children, edited by Jan van Coillie.
Cartoon by Joep Bertrams, 28 February 2007: Dutch Queen Beatrix violates the Turkish ban on headscarves during her state visit.
Career as political cartoonist
In 1982, Joep Bertrams made his earliest illustrations for the Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool, appearing in their children's supplement Goochem (1982-1988), which was edited by his friend Paul Arnoldussen. The drawings visualized current events. Bertrams also provided artwork for thematic series, for instance one about Japan. In 1988, when Het Parool's house cartoonist Peter van Straaten abandoned political cartooning in favor of more timeless cartoons about recognizable, real-life topics, Bertrams succeeded him as the paper's political cartoonist. Originally, he made three cartoons a week, eventually rising up to six. His drawings have also been syndicated to international publications, such as The Herald Tribune, The New York Times, Newsweek, Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Zeit.
In October 2009, news arrived that Bertrams would leave Het Parool the next year, under the vague explanation that the editors considered it time for "something different". Many readers wrote letters to complain against this decision and on 30 January 2010, the paper's editors made an official announcement that Bertrams would stay after all. Yet, in March 2011 he still left and joined De Groene Amsterdammer, where, since 9 March 2011, his cartoons appear on a weekly basis. They also run in various Dutch regional papers. Bertrams is a member of Cartooning for Peace and hosts his own Twitter and Instagram account. Bertrams' cartoons have been collected in the books 'Oud Zeer' (Catullus, 2007) and 'Meer Zeer' (Catullus, 2007).
Cartoon by Joep Bertrams, 26 October 2016: Donald Trump will only accept the election results if he wins.
Controversy
In 2013, Joep Bertrams drew a cartoon depicting Turkish president Ahmet Erdögan being covered in bird shit, left behind by the Twitter logo birds. The cartoon was shared all over the world. In Turkey, opponents of Erdögan's regime carried the image around on protest signs. Soon after, the cartoon was officially banned in Turkey.
In 2015, Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the Parisian offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and murdered almost all of the editors, writers and cartoonists for mocking and visualizing the Prophet Muhammad in several of their issues. Like many cartoonists all over the world, Bertrams expressed his condolences for his murdered colleagues and defended freedom of speech. Under the title 'Onsterfelijk' ("Immortal"), he made a powerful cartoon of a decapitated Charlie Hebdo contributor using his chopped off neck to stick out his tongue at a startled terrorist. In early November 2020, a teacher in Rotterdam hung Bertrams' cartoon in his classroom. Only a month earlier, a French teacher named Samuel Paty, had been murdered for showing the portrait of the Prophet Muhammad in class. The Rotterdam teacher wanted to present Bertrams' cartoon as a statement about freedom of speech. Unfortunately, some of his own students misinterpreted the bearded terrorist as the Prophet Muhammad and expressed their outrage on social media, causing the situation to escalate. Soon he had to go into hiding. Another teacher in Den Bosch also showed the cartoon in school and was forced to go into hiding too.
Bertrams reacted in an interview that this was "awful and nasty" and again stressed that the character in the cartoon wasn't Muhammad but a regular terrorist, modeled after the IS terrorists in Syria. He concluded that the pupils who complained were probably too young or disinterested in the news to recognize this as such. Interviewed by Metronieuws, he also stated that the pupils possibly wanted to cause an uproar: "Pupils in that age bracket have their own dynamic and no idea of the consequences."
2004 cartoon by Joep Bertrams, depicting local Amsterdam politician Rob Oudkerk who was revealed to be a whoremonger and claimed these activities were "neurobiological reactions". In Bertram's cartoon, a brick reading "politieke druk" ("political pressure") gives him an erection.
Animation career
Bertrams made animated cartoons and designed puppets and backgrounds for theater productions and TV shows like 'Oren van je Kop' (1990-1991). Since 2004, Bertrams' animated cartoons have appeared in the Dutch current affairs programme Nova, on the website of the TV program Nieuwsuur and in other media.
Graphic contributions
Bertrams was one of many cartoonists to make a graphic contribution to 'Vuile Handen' (Arena, 2006), a book protesting seal hunting. The same year, he also contributed to the collective book 'Was Tom Poes Maar Hier - Een Hommage Aan Marten Toonder' (De Bezige Bij), which pays tribute to comic artist Marten Toonder.
Joep Bertrams cartoon of 13 January 2004 for Cultuurwijzer, showing the artist's vision on the role of the cartoonist.
Recognition
In 1986, Bertrams won the Zilveren Penseel ("Silver Brush") for his illustrations in Wiels Kusters' novel 'Salamanders Vangen' and again in 1989 for his own book 'Johan Edelgans'. In 2001, he received the Ton Smits-pin for his entire oeuvre from Cartoonists Association De Tulp. On 20 January 2005, Bertrams received the Inktspotprijs for "Best Political Cartoon". His drawing mocked the run-up to the referendum about the European Constitution. Bertrams received the Inktspotprijs a second time on 23 September 2015 with his cartoon about the terrorist attacks on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo earlier that year.
In 2016, the city of Sittard-Geleen honored Bertrams with the Fritschy Stadscultuurprijs for his entire body of work. On 15 March 2017, Bertrams won the first prize in a cartooning contest organized by International Press Center Nieuwspoort, The Hague, and the Press Museum in Amsterdam. His cartoon depicted PvdA politician Lodewijk Asscher waiting in an elevator, but all the buttons are dysfunctional.
Books about Joep Bertrams
In 2006, Joep Bertrams' cartoons were exhibited in the Haus der Niederlande in Münster and the Press Museum in Amsterdam. A book with DVD called 'Oud Zeer' (2006) was published for the occasion by Jean-Marc van Tol's publishing label Catullus. It collected Bertram's work dealing with the post 9/11 period and the three cabinets of Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende. 'Meer Zeer' (2007) presented a selection of his drawings and animated shorts from 2007.
Cartoon depicting Dutch Prime Minister Balkenende literally hiding under his desk and pretending national crises are not happening under his term.