The Artist

Johan Kolman was born in the Netherlands in 1954. He studied at the art academy in Holland, where he was tutored by H.J. Slijper, a well known Dutch artist and a falconer as well.

Johan is a professional artist painter since he finished art school in 1978. He works mainly on commission, one of these commissions was working for six months in the middle east painting the favoured falcons for high placed Arabs. Over the years he specialized in making portraits of people and birds of prey. 

He is very much appreciated for combining these specialties in making portraits of falconers with their birds. 

Johan is also well known in the Netherlands for illustrating the annual yearbook of the Dutch falconry club Adriaan Mollen and made the front cover for that yearbook for many years.
He works mainly in oil and gouache (water colour)

The Falconer

As a young boy he was attracted by birds in general, keeping a group of jackdaws flying around his family home. Falconry came later when his tutor Henk Slijper caught one of his jackdaws with his lanner falcon. Since then falconry played a very important role in his life. 

From the seventies onwards he flew mainly Goshawks and many ( rehab) sparrow-hawks. He is a passionate falconer attracted to the restless nature of the accipiter’s, but also charmed by the friendly nature of a peregrine.

As a fan of the cocker spaniel for the goshawk, he is also passionate in that field. His dog became a field trial champion in the Netherlands. 

He spends a good part of the year in the west of Ireland, his second homeland.