After university preparatory education (VWO), Evert Thielen (Venlo, 1954) spent two years at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. A number of solo exhibitions followed, in which he focused on making his first polyptich “De Schilderkunst” [The art of painting]. From 1980 to 1983 he participated in a study of the painting techniques and materials of Van Eyck’s “Lam Gods” [The Ghent Altarpiece – Adoration of the Mystic Lamb] at the Koninklijk Instituut van het Kunstpatrimonium [Royal Academy of Art Heritage] in Brussels. After spending some time in Munich, he painted the polyptich “De Schepping” [The Creation] (1987-1992). This work led to a commission from the Sara Lee/Douwe Egberts concern in Utrecht in the form of the polyptich “Unified” (1993-1996). In 1999 he moved to Bruges (Belgium), where he started work on the polyptich “Het Verlangen” [Longing], which was completed in 2005 and will be exhibited in public for the first time in Museum de Fundatie (Zwolle) in 2011. The fourth polyptich generated a commission for a fifth in 2006 entitled “Bellenhof” (2006-…).