Opland - political cartoonist - large mixed media/collage "thirst for knowledge"

• Characteristic mixed media (gouache, marker, collage) on paper, made by the well-known (Volkskrant) cartoonist/political cartoonist rob Wout alias OPLAND. Bottom left entitled "thirst for knowledge" and part of a complete series of 11 "political virtues" he created in the 1980s. Is in good condition, somewhat discolored on the edges.

Opland was raised as a Restored Evangelical Lutheran in Amsterdam's Rivierenbuurt. He experienced the crisis years before the war.
At an early age, Opland drew for the school newspaper or pinned his drawings to the school notice board. After high school he attended Christian HBS.
After high school, Opland wanted to travel and see the world. At that time, there were two options to achieve this: studying law or going to the Political Social Faculty. Opland chose the latter, but he never reached the foreign service. To pay for his studies, he sold his drawings.
When Opland contracted pleurisy, he stopped his studies to get some more rest. He started to draw more and more and in 1947 he ended up as a draftsman at De Groene Amsterdammer. He was 19 years old at the time, inexperienced and uneducated. Yet his drawings hit the Binnenhof like a thunderbolt. A year later he started at de Volkskrant; he was personally asked by the then editor-in-chief.
In May 1992 there was an exhibition Politics in Print in the provincial government building in Haarlem.
Opland died at the age of 73 in Amsterdam on July 19, 2001.