Hendrik Kolenberg (b.Rotterdam, Netherlands; resides and works in Sydney) emigrated with his parents and elder brother to Australia in 1952. After several months at Bonegilla Migrant camp near Wodonga, Victoria, they settled in Adelaide. He had private lessons in painting from Carl Lock in 1962 and in drawing and watercolour from a relative, Kas Vandelaar, in 1964. He studied at the South Australian School of Art and Western Teachers' College, Adelaide 1965-1967, taught art in high schools in South Australia 1968- 1971, was an Education Officer at the Art Gallery of South Australia 1972. Travelled to Rotterdam 1973. After two years in London and The Hague he returned to Australia in December 1975 and taught art for a year in Adelaide.
From 1976 until 2012 he was a curator at state art galleries in Perth, Hobart and Sydney. In 1982 he studied at the Print Room of the British Museum with a Harold Wright and Sarah & William Holmes Scholarship. Since 1992 he has travelled to Europe on a number of occasions, mostly on extended stays in the Netherlands. Drawing and painting has been a constant in his life since earliest childhood. He exhibited his work for the first time in Sydney in 1996.
