He was born in
Sneek, but grew up in
Amsterdam, where he studied art history at the
University of Amsterdam. After his studies in 1957 he became curator of the
Princessehof Ceramics Museum in
Leeuwarden. In 1963 he returned to Amsterdam to write his dissertation on Karel van Mander. Though best known for his (Dutch and English) work on Van Mander, he is also an artist and
linguistics expert who has written poems and stories in his native
Frisian. He wrote the poem
De greate wrakseling with illustrations by his own hand in West Frisian in 1964 about a sculptor who fights for innovation against the strict structures of musea. The sculptor realizes at a certain point that he has
forgotten to knock his art to pieces. ==Select bibliography==