Dirkje Kuik - William (Dirkje) Kuik - mixed media on paper - fantasy landscape - Sold

• Dirkje Kuik (Utrecht, October 7, 1929 – ibid., March 18, 2008[1]) was a Dutch writer, graphic artist, illustrator, cartoonist and trans woman.

Life course
Dirkje, who lives and works in Utrecht, was born as William Diederich Kuik. In 1977, Kuik started using the first name Dirkje and in 1979 Kuik underwent surgery in a hospital in London and has since lived entirely as a woman. She wrote extensively about her surgery, her experiences as a gender diaspora patient, as she called it, and how she picked up her life after the surgery, particularly in Huishoudboekje met razijnen.
Kuik studied for a while at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam, was an art critic for Het Parool and drew for Vrij Nederland. In 1960, Kuik founded the graphic company De Luis together with Joop Moesman and Henc van Maarseveen. Participating artists with diverse ideas took turns for twenty years.
As a graphic artist, illustrator and draughtsman she focused on cityscapes, figure representations and portraits; she was also a writer and poet. As a poet she made her debut in 1969 with the collection 45 Gedichten, still under the name William D. Kuik. The work is seen as an important contribution to the Dutch neo-romantic movement. For Utrechtse Notities from 1969 she received the Prose Prize of the municipality of Amsterdam. The serial De held van het potspel from 1974, illustrated by Kuik herself, was awarded the Vijverberg Prize.
From 1958-1963 and from 1968-1972 she was a member of the society Kunstliefde, a Utrecht association of artists and art lovers, founded in 1807. Dirkje Kuik died in 2008 and was buried in a very private circle at the local Soestbergen Cemetery. After her death, an exhibition was set up at Kunstliefde on the Nobelstraat as a triptych, her visual work, a biographical overview of her life and visual work by contemporaries.
On November 19, 1985, Kuik gave her lecture in the series 'The Burning Issue of...', organized by the Amsterdam Literary Activities Foundation (SLAA) in De Balie.[3] The theme of intersex was central to the lecture.
In 2008, a museum in her former home and studio at Oudekamp 1 in Utrecht was set up in her honour, which existed for about four years. Near this address, on the corner of Herenstraat, a QR code plaque was unveiled on 10 December 2024.
Her artistic legacy was managed by the former foundation "Dirkje Kuik". At the end of 2024, the exhibition Hommage to Dirkje Kuik of her literary and visual work could be viewed in Utrecht, organized by Salon Saffier and Galerie Waterbolk.