Beautiful money

Who needs to spend money on art when the bills are so beautiful?

Robert Deodaat Emile Oxenaar has been designing money for the Netherlands since the mid 1860s. There is a nice interview with this talented designer and teacher here at the Creative Review.

You can also find a Wikipedia entry for Oxenaar, but sadly it is lacking information at this time.


Like all currency, the Oxenaar bills are beautifully detailed. But, these have something more than your run of the mill anti-forging guards. Oxenaar admits to sometimes adding in personal details, names of friends and relations woven into the design.

The sunflower bill burns with the clear light of those amazingly long, sunny Scandinavian summer days.

In the example of the lighthouse, the colors are strong and clear, confident and honest. It reminds one of how important lighthouses were historically to sea trading powers like the Netherlands.

Oxenaars designs draw us into a private view of his beautiful homeland. Sometimes it is the small and unimportant details, the little brown shorebird that is more evocative than yet another careful rendering of a map or famous landmark. The sandpiper bill illustrates this point perfectly. Unobtrusive yet ubiquious these birds must be. Busily turning over flotsum on the beaches. So common as to be almost invisible in his brown suit. Yet behind him, in his mind's eye, is the the glory of the spring in the Netherlands, bright rainbows and poppies in the meadows that run right down the strand.




It is a shame to see the passing of individual country currencies in Europe. Bills were small advertisements, graphic representations of the country's landmarks, historical events, notable characters and values. Mementos for tourists, differentiators of each country's brand.

The European Union has a currency, the Euro, designed by Austrian Robert Kalina. While fine designs, they feel generic and lack the passion and local color that make Oxenaar's designs so delightful. It is my hope that the EU give Mr Kalina more artistic freedom in the future.


While hunting around on bankotes.com for more examples of Oxenaar's and Kalina's work I ran across these wacky erotic Euros.

Legal tender indeed!

Thanks to banknotes.com for the images in the post, excluding the euro.