Fritzi Harmsen van Beek

The daughter of the cartoonist Harmsen van der Beek, she became an illustrator and poet, receiving significant attention for her debut collection Geachte Muizenpoot en Achttien Andere Gedichten.

Harmsen van der Beek resented the media's portrayal of her as a wild bohemian, and she retreated for the latter decades of her life to a small village in the far northeast of the Netherlands.

Frederike ten Harmsen van der Beek, known as a child by the nickname Fritzi, was born in 1927 in Blaricum, Netherlands, outside of Amsterdam.

[6] While working as a housekeeper and studying in France in her mid-20s, Harmsen van der Beek met Eric de Mareschal, a geology student.

She lived there alongside a parade of visiting artists and writers until 1971, when the building, which had become overrun by her many cats, was cleared out by the Amsterdam City Council.

[2][4][6] Harmsen van der Beek had an adversarial relationship with the press, which she saw as egregiously encroaching on her privacy and unfairly depicting her as a bohemian wild child.