About Michiel Janzen

'Michiel’s best friends are little soldiers.' That was the opening line of a Sinterklaas poem his sister once wrote for him. He must have been around ten years old. The soldiers in question were Airfix figures, no bigger than a thimble. They fitted perfectly alongside his miniature tanks and aircraft from Dinky Toys, Corgi Toys and Solido. Michiel Janzen was born in North Brabant, has Belgian roots and now lives in Lyon.

Together with his friends, he recreated many battles from the Second World War. After their games of war, the living room would be a battlefield in itself. When they played outside, more than half of the little soldiers would disappear. In that sense, their games and the losses that came with them were not so far removed from reality.

Playing with soldiers, recreating battles, thinking like a general and applying strategy and tactics: it was there from an early age. His fascination with military history has only grown since then. The result is a widely praised body of work set in different periods of modern history.