'Oranje Op Weg Naar Engeland' (1994), caricaturing journalist Jack van Gelder and football trainer Guus Hiddink, among others.
Harr Wiegman was a Dutch illustrator, designer and fine artist from Schiedam, who spent his life making cartoons, political drawings, caricatures, comics, storyboards for film and stage, sets, decorations and designs. He was best-known as the creator of Proosje, a mascot for the city of Schiedam and its Dutch gin industry. He was a longtime cartoonist for newspapers like Rotterdams Nieuwsblad and Algemeen Dagblad. In the mid-1990s, he drew the satirical comic 'Zeg Maar Jet' (1988-1990) in Algemeen Dagblad and the association football comic 'Nick Staben' for the soccer monthly Elf.
Artistic family
Henri Maurits Johannes Wiegman - Harry Wiegman for short - was born in 1951 in Schiedam, a town west of Rotterdam, historically known for its many distilleries and malthouses. His first name Harry was quickly shortened to "Harr". The Wiegman family has played an important role in the Schiedam and Rotterdam art scenes. Grandfather Gerard Wiegman (1875-1964) was a Rotterdam painter of harbor and city views, and also of land- and cityscapes. Harr's father Theo "Doop" Wiegman (1908-1996) was fine art painter, decorator, and the initiator of several art manifestations in Rotterdam cinemas. His sons Aad (1941), Gerard (1942), Diet (1944), Frans (1948) and Harr (1951) all became well-known figures in Schiedam's public life. Harr's brother Gerard Wiegman was an advertising designer, while Diet Wiegman has worked as visual artist, known for his ceramics and shadow & light sculptures. During the 1960s and 1970s, Frans Wiegman was co-founder and guitarist with the local rock band Iron Earth. Oldest brother Aad Wiegman was the only sibling who didn't choose a creative career path, although he was still a prominent member of Schiedam society as a local politician. Sister Wil had a talent for portrait painting, but eventually didn't pursue this and eventually moved to the United States. Harr Wiegman's nephew is multidisciplinary artist, musician and deejay Mike Redman (1978), who also made 2008 book and film about his father, Diet Wiegman.
Harr Wiegman, portrayed in the Schiedamsche Courant of 25 August 1974.
Early career
As Harr Wiegman grew up within an artistic household, he spent a large part of his childhood with drawing. While still a teenager, he saw his first drawing published in the newspaper Het Vrije Volk. It was a cartoon of the artist Jan Wolffers who threw a tantrum in early 1966 when he was not selected for the "Salon van de Maassteden" exhibition in the Schiedam City Museum. In his rage, the offended artist threw a chair that destroyed an antique mirror. At age sixteen, Wiegman began making political drawings for the local newspaper Rotterdams Nieuwsblad. In the mid-1970s, Wiegman's services were requested by the editors of the Dutch Donald Duck weekly, but his contributions remained limited to a single cover illustration, as Wiegman wanted more freedom in his artistic expressions.
Cover illustration for Donald Duck weekly and collection of Wiegman's erotic cartoons.
Porn cartoonist
Around the same time, Wiegman had his start as porn cartoonist, making naughty drawings for the Schiedam magazine Smile, edited by Jan Jagt and Hein van der Velden. Signing with "Hadi", he later also had drawings published in other sex magazines from The Netherlands and Belgium, most notably Chick, Candy and Rosie, but also Smul, Lolita, Smik, Pik-up, Dream, Pix, Kiss, Cora and Climax. In 1971, publisher Rijmond released a pocket book collection with Hadi cartoons. At the time, no one knew it was Wiegman who was making these drawings. Decades later, in 2017, Belinda and Jacques Tange showed a selection of Hadi's porn cartoons in their Schiedam gallery. In their press communication, they continued to keep the real identity of "Hadi" a mystery, even though it was already known that Harr Wiegman was the actual artist.
Sticker starring Proosje for the Nolet distillery (1976).
Proosje
Becoming a well-known face in Schiedam nightlife, Harr Wiegman has been active in many forms of art. He has made caricatures, comics, cartoons, illustrations, sculptures, designs, murals and films on commission. In the local bar 't Sterretje, he often sold his work, and met with potential clients. One of them was the Nolet distillery, known for its Ketel One Vodka and the Proosje van Schiedam bitter, for whom he designed labels. For the festivities of Schiedam's 700th anniversary in 1975, Harr Wiegman designed the character Proosje, a gnome with hat and gin glass, referring to the city's age-old tradition in the Dutch gin industry.
Over the years, Proosje has become Schiedam's city mascot, comparable in recognizability to Manneken Pis in Brussels and Flipje in Tiel. Among other things, his likeness has been used on product labels of the Nolet distillery, who named its famous bitter after the character. A small Proosje statue was passed on annually as a trophy for Schiedam bars. One of the Schiedam bars is also named after Wiegman's creation. In 2011, Proosje was honored with a large bronze statue, made by Wiegman himself, at the Land van Belofte square in Schiedam's historical city centre. Another popular statue made by Harr Wiegman was the one of Marten Toonder's Lord Bumble character, inaugurated in Den Bommel in 1997.
Contest comic created by Harr Wiegman in 1974.
Comic artist/cartoonist
During the 1970s, local newspapers labeled Harr Wiegman as "the only comic artist of Schiedam". On 28 June 1974, the Schiedamsche Courant reported on the success of a contest comic made by Wiegman for the fifth anniversary of the book store 't Centrum, prompting children to color in the panels and fill in the word balloons. As a cartoonist and caricaturist, Wiegman has portrayed many famous people, from local and national politicians to famous Schiedam people. Many of them appeared in newspapers like Rotterdams Nieuwsblad and then Algemeen Dagblad (AD), as well as the local Schiedam magazine De Binnenkant. In the national newspaper Algemeen Dagblad, Wiegman also made illustrations for a medical section during the 1980s. Wiegman additionally made cartoons for medical magazines, governmental agencies, municipal institutions, the Rotterdam police, the advertising world and the business community. He has also been an illustrator of children's books for publishers like Omniboek, and an artist-for-hire for portraits in oil paint or acrylics.
'Zeg maar Jet...' (AD, 16 January 1990). Translation: "Our Mondriaan interior is getting old-fashioned. We're no longer "in": we have to change along." - "How about Van Gogh wall paper?"
Zeg Maar Jet
Between September 1988 and May 1990, Algemeen Dagblad ran Wiegman's weekly comic strip 'Zeg Maar Jet...' ("Just Say Jet"). The title character, Jet, is a ponytailed young woman who works at a big company. She is surrounded by snobby, materialistic people who only care about hard cash, the latest fashions and keeping up appearances. The series was topical: it satirized the yuppie movement that was in vogue during the 1980s and whose status-driven endeavors were already ripe for ridicule. Wiegman drew everything in a swift, elegant, highly stylized manner, fitting of the classy, pretentious ideas of its characters. The cast wears exaggerated clothing typical for the decade, from huge shoulder pads to skin tight jeans.
'Zeg maar Jet...' (AD, 8 November 1988). The character has just listened to a rerun of Orson Welles' famous radio broadcast 'War of the Worlds' about an extraterrestrial invasion and is relieved that it was just a radio play. But when her friend arrives in her latest outfit, she assumes she's a Martian.
Nick Staben
In the mid-1990s, Wiegman made a comic feature about association football player 'Nick Staben' for the soccer monthly Elf. Besides the fictional main character, the comic starred caricatural versions of famous Dutch soccer players and sports journalists. Between 1994 and 1998, publisher De Boemerang released three comic book collections of the strip, 'Oranje Op Weg Naar Amerika' (1994), 'Oranje Op Weg Naar Engeland' (1996) and 'Oranje Op Weg Naar Frankrijk' (1998).
One episode of the comic, printed in late July 1995, caused controversy with the mother of football player Patrick Kluivert. In one scene, the Dutch football team prepares itself for a game against the Czech Republic, calling in the service of a voodoo priest. Football trainer Guus Hiddink convinces Kluivert's mother to help him by eating some pastry with him. She then goes directly to Pope John Paul II, receiving his divine blessing to help the Dutch team win. The real-life mother of Kluivert objected to her comic book portrayal, which she felt was offensive, both to herself and the Pope. She threatened to take legal action, but it seems that the fuss died down again afterwards.
Final years and recognition
During the final years of his career, Harr Wiegman and several other artists had their atelier in a former school building in Schiedam's Tuindorp neighborhood. On 25 March 2022, the Dutch gin guild Het Gulden Glaasje "knighted" both Wiegman and the statue of his famous Proosje creation for their contributions to the Schiedam gin legacy. When in 2023 it became known that he was terminally ill, a mural of Proosje was placed on the wall of Wiegman's former house at Schiedam's Grote Markt. Harr Wiegman died of intestinal cancer in April 2023. He was 72 years old.
Poster starring Proosje for the 700th anniversary of Schiedam (1975).