'Een Avontuur van Rieuwert Catz' (In De Groene Omelet, 1976).
Rieuwert Catz was one of the artists for De Omelet, the 1970s underground comic magazine that launched the careers of famous comic creators like Hanco Kolk and Aloys Oosterwijk. Instead of pursuing a career in comics or illustration himself, Catz eventually became a high school drawing teacher, and part of the international "Urban Sketchers" community.
Early life and comics career
Born in Arnhem in 1954, Rieuwert Catz was a high school friend of Hanco Kolk. Catz's father was the deputy principal of the school. Studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Arnhem, he also became friends with Aloys Oosterwijk, Ben Jansen and René Meulenbroek. In 1975, these four men were joined by Diederick van Kleef and Frank Langedijk in the launch of an amateur comic magazine, called De Omelet. Generally, the magazine is referred to as "In The Colored Omelet", as each issue had a specific color in its title ("In De Blauwe Omelet", "In De Oranje Omelet", etc.), allegedly an idea of Catz. Between February 1976 and 1978, seven issues of De Omelet appeared, the first two DIY issues were self-published, the other five were released through Har van Fulpen's publishing house Drukwerk. Over the course of these seven issues, the group experimented graphically, while gradually improving their skills. Catz contributed stand-alone comic stories to all seven issues, although the ostrich St. Ruis appeared in several of them.
Launch of De Omelet on 28 February 1976. Top row: Aloys Oosterwijk, Rieuwert Catz, Ben Jansen, Hanco Kolk, René Meulenbroek. At the front: Diederick van Kleef and Frank Langedijk.
In 1978, De Omelet merged with the titles Tante Leny and Speedo into Talent, a new comic magazine published by Drukwerk. While Jansen, Kolk, Meulenbroek and Oosterwijk continued to contribute to this new magazine, and eventually united their activities in the collective Studio Arnhem, both Rieuwert Catz and Diederick van Kleef pursued other career paths. Frank Langedijk had already left the Omelet project after its first issue.
'De Lift' (In De Bruine Omelet, 1977).
Later career
From 1979 until his retirement in 2020, Rieuwert Catz was a high school drawing teacher, from 1985 on at the Stedelijk Gymnasium in Den Bosch. For the first few years, he taught drawing in the lower grades, and later he became a Visual Arts teacher, which allowed him to guide the students all the way through to their final exams. Since 2017, he has been co-author of school books in the 'ART-History' series for the publishing house Lambo.
In his spare time, Catz has been a pianist in several funk, latin and jazz bands, since 2015 in the Klarendal Jazz Orchestra. In addition, he has been an avid "urban sketcher", making on-location pen drawings in cities, towns and villages. During his teaching years, he often took his students outdoors to draw in the city, and he has also kept drawn diaries during his travels to Indonesia, Vietnam and Albania. In the Netherlands, he often visits historical spots to draw.
Urban sketch of the Steenstraat in Arnhem, where Catz was born.