The everlasting charm of illustrator Dick Bruna’s Miffy

If feeling stressed, one of my favourite YouTube videos to watch is Dick Bruna at work in his studio. Completely silent throughout, apart from the narration of a children’s TV presenter, the short runs through the meticulous process of creating his most beloved character: Nijntje if you’re Dutch, or to the rest of the world, Miffy.

At first, the artist draws out the famously rounded cheeks of this little rabbit onto a piece of tracing paper, neatly placed on top of a white sheet. Pressing hard, his drawing is indented in the paper below, invisible until carefully outlined with black ink, which he keeps in an ashtray, balancing a paintbrush where a cigarette would sit. Once this is drawn, the narrator explains that Bruna could spend days considering colour combinations, despite the fact he only ever worked in red, blue, green, yellow, and sometimes brown if an animal’s character required it. Then, seemingly by eye, he cuts out the shape required from specifically printed sheets of coloured paper and builds a collage. Transferring his ink drawing to a piece of transparency (like you would find for an overhead projector), and taping this delicately on top of the collage, the scene of a Miffy page appears – always perfect in its simplicity.

A Dutch artist who spent the majority of his life in the Netherlands, Dick Bruna was born in 1927, coincidentally the Chinese zodiac year of the rabbit, and passed away in 2017. His legacy, however, has been cemented in the hearts of children and parents for years. But despite his 124 picture books in over 50 languages, there was little information available about the man himself, particularly in English, until the recent publication of Dick Bruna, the latest edition of Thames & Hudson’s series The Illustrators.

Due to his then age of 16, and his father still being only 40, the Brunas retreated into hiding to avoid forced labour when Nazi Germany launched its attack on the Netherlands and Belgium in 1943. This lengthy period of retreat “was no imposed hardship,” writes Bruce, “rather, it provided extended hours of solitude for writing, drawing, painting, composing songs, playing his accordion and, best of all, dreaming.”

Following the war, Bruna was forced to travel to Europe on work experience ahead of joining his family’s business, spending two years in London at WHSmith, and a further two at Plon, a publisher in Paris. This experience had less than the desired effect, however, with the artist finding new inspiration in artists such as Picasso, and describing the instant he saw Matisse’s collages as the moment “he became the most important man in my life”.

After a brief stint at the Rijksakaddemie Academy of Visual Art in Amsterdam, the stars aligned when Bruna dropped out and moved back with his parents to Utrecht in 1951. Living across the road was Irene de Jongh, a woman Bruna seemed to fall in love with instantly, even buying a dog so the shy artist could bump into her as she walked on her own. Eventually asking her to marry him, twice, the condition from Irene’s family was that the marriage could only go ahead once Bruna got a “real” job – his father’s wish for him to join A.W Bruna and Zoon was serendipitously granted.

There have also been several collaborations of note over the years, with brands seeing the endless appeal of Miffy, from handbags made by leather brand Strathberry, a collection with Uniqlo, a stationery set with Papier, and in contemporary fashion contexts such as a collaboration with Pop Trading Company. A more recent example is a Miffy collection made with Ghostly International, a record label and art company based in New York, more regularly known for working with artists like Matthew Dear, HTRK or Tobacco. Samuel Valenti IV, the founder of Ghostly, knows the familiar feeling of Miffy’s omnipresence: “I can’t recall the first time I saw Miffy but I know she pops up in the most interesting places: museum stores, mom and pop toy stores, etc. There is always a sense that she is special, something above the fray.” He adds that a want to collaborate with the character, made 65 years ago now, is simply because she’s “beguiling and leaves an impression… There’s something going on that isn’t dumbed down, the simplicity and sincerity is a form of respect.”

This love audiences hold for Miffy is one channelled into Bruce’s book format, a result of his belief that “a book like this should be captivating to look at and fascinating to read,” he tells It’s Nice That. “The colour, the images; it should be a joy to have it in your hands.” Made with as much care as Bruna poured into his own works, the book is one made for fans of Miffy that attempts “to reveal the sheer scale of Bruna’s output throughout a lifetime of drawing, painting, designing; to look at his influences, work methods and to go some way to explaining his success.”

In turn, it’s a title to be handled just as thoughtfully and carefully as Bruna made his works, with the “sloth-like, steady, assiduous” temperament he had, as Bruce describes. There are few better examples of Bruna’s dedication to his art than his heartbreaking reaction to finding out that his heart was growing weaker, detailed in a moving section of the book. “After that, he determined to stop going to his studio. Despite the cajoling of his family, surprised at his abrupt decision, he would not be persuaded,” writes Bruce. “His mind was made up; he didn’t want to work if he couldn’t give it his all.”