Maarten Oortwijn was a Dutch artist, photographer, and illustrator. Oortwijn began his career in advertising and produced various drawings and illustrations on commission. Gradually, he began to specialize more in landscape drawings and city and village views of the province of North Holland and the Waterland region in particular. Oortwijn was described as the ‘photographer with a pen’, his works give an almost photographic representation of topography and architecture, of crafts and interiors of homes or churches. His work was regularly printed in the Nieuwe Noord-Hollandse Courant, the Typhoon, and the Verenigde Noord-Hollandse Dagbladen. From 1946 onwards, he also drew for ten years on commission for the monthly magazine De Speelwagen, a magazine dedicated to the historical beauty of North Holland.
In 1993, Oortwijn received widespread recognition for his work when the province of North Holland purchased more than six hundred of his drawings for the provincial archives.
Maarten Oortwijn also published three books under his own name, a collection of 50 drawings entitled Met Maarten Oortwijn door Waterland en omstreken (With Maarten Oortwijn through Waterland and surroundings).
