Annet Kossen

Annet Kossen
Annet Kossen's youtube profile picture
Full name	Annet Kossen
Born	May 28, 1938
Died	October 20, 2024 (aged 86)
Birthplace	wikipedia:Alkmaar, The Netherlands
Occupation	Wikipedia:Illustrator
Years active	1964-????

Annet Kossen (May 28, 1938 - October 20, 2024) was a painter and an illustrator. Born in Alkmaar. She was the illustrator to bring the originally French fairytale, Drakestail, to Herman van Veen's attention, which was the start of everything Alfred Jodocus Kwak.

History

New York

Kossen was infatuated with the art of drawing from a young age. After the mulo she went to study at Schoevers, whose courses were in office management and secretarial tasks, which she hated, but her parents told her to learn a trade. She lived in Alkmaar until her 19th and then moved to Amsterdam. Her education gave her the opportunity to work at Carré and Uitgeverij Querido.

In 1964 she moved to New York where she handled the work of prominent young American illustrators as the leader of a flourishing company. During her time in America she also briefly attended the local School of Visual Arts where she focused herself on painting. During this time she was asked for her first illustration job, illustrating a black and white cookbook for a befriended publisher from New York. Afterwards she also provided several illustrations for the magazine Puffin Post.

She returned to Amsterdam with writer Rob Chrispijn in 1973 who she married. She used the illustrations she made professionally in America plus other work to create a binder of drawings to go by publishers. Publisher Lemniscaat commissioned her to work on a picture book called Repelsteeltje (Rumpelstiltskin) in 1977.

Alfred J. Kwak

During this time she also met Herman van Veen through her husband Rob Chrispijn who writes song texts, makes photographs and does lighting on productions for van Veen. Van Veen sees her pictures and would like to make a picture book with her, so he asks her to find a story to use as a basis. During this time Kossen reports to have struggled with wikipedia:imposter syndrom as she had never completed any form of illustration education and was autodidact.

She had found an old fairy tale in the Red Fairy Book called Drakestail, written by Andrew Lang in 1890. This story was adapted by Lang from the french story Bout-d'-Canard (lit. Duck Butt) written by Charles Marelle in 1888. She translated this story to Dutch for van Veen and presented it to him. They worked on it and van Veen wrote some verses.

Before starting on a picture book Van Veen uses the story idea in a small stageplay that was made at the request of a friend of a Harlekijn Holland employee for her birthday in 1976. Not long after in 1977, the director of the Residentie Orkest asked van Veen to create a musical play for children, so he further adapted the story into a production that eventually premiered in February of 1978.

Kossen's drawings were used for the cover of the vinyl release of the Alfred J. Kwak theater play and when the play proved to be successful they commissioned a story book in 1979, which had an edited re-release in 1987.

Kossen looks back with anger at this time.

Works

This list is incomplete.