BIOGRAPHY

Joost Swarte (Heemstede, December 24, 1947) started to draw comics at the end of the 1960s, while still studying industrial design. In 1970 he published his first comic book, and from 1971 onwards, he worked for the famous Dutch underground comics magazine Tante Leny Presenteert! Since 1970 he has been writing and drawing comics for children. One example is the nine adventures of Katoen en Pinbal, published in the USA as Hector and Dexter in children’s magazine Measles.

In 1980 he took part in the international comics festival Salon International De La Bande Dessinée in Angoulême, France for the first time. Since then he has gained international recognition and his comics have been translated into English, French, German, Spanish, Catalan and Italian.

He has illustrated on a regular basis for the Dutch weekly Vrij Nederland, and the Belgian weekly Humo.

His comics were published in Raw magazine, founded by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly from the very first issue in 1979. Halfway through the 1980s he switched from drawing mainly comics to illustration and graphic art. He also started designing posters, stamps, logos, typefaces, furniture, objects and even buildings.

In 1996 he presented a plan for a new design of the Toneelschuur, a theater in Haarlem, which he further developed in collaboration with Mecanoo Architects. It was inaugurated in 2003 and is a striking spectacle amid the historical city center’s old buildings.

He is also a music lover and has worked on CDs for singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Fay Lovsky (Jopo In Mono, 1992) and for Arling & Cameron (Sound Shopping, 1998).

For the city hall of Haarlem he designed a carpet with 61 pictograms which tell the history of the city. In 2004 he created an enormous stained glass window (± 100 m²) for the courthouse in Arnhem.

Joost Swarte created 24 statues for the Dutch pavilion garden in the Floriade 2002, an international agricultural exhibition in Hoofddorp.

He has illustrated works by the Dutch writer Nescio.

Joost Swarte is a true promoter of comics. He initiated the Stripdagen Haarlem, a biennial international comic event that took place for the first time in 1992 in Haarlem.

He is the cofounder of publishing house Oog & Blik (Amsterdam), which specializes in comics and graphic art. He is a consultant at publishing house Scratch and was the initiator of international comics magazine Scratches, which, though international in character, lays emphasis on Dutch and Flemish and artists.

He worked on the architectural program for the Hergé Museum in Louvain la Neuve Belgium (architect: Christian de Portzamparc) and on the presentation of the permanent collection.

Joost Swarte is a regular contributor to The New Yorker.