Henk Tichelaar was born in Amsterdam in 1954. He graduated  at the academy C.A.B.K at Kampen, 1985. In 1999 he got an commission from the state forest management, an edition Issued by Gallery Piet Clement, Amsterdam. In 2000 he received the Prix de la Société Français de Gravure and in 2015 the Art Price of the City of  Kampen. he exhibited his work in Porugal, Spain, America, Japan, Finland, France, The Netherlands and Germany and his work is included in several private and public collections in Europe and the United States.
From 2007 he works as an Instructor for Graphic Techniques at the Academy of Arts and Design (ARTEZ) in Zwolle, The Netherlands. He introduced electrolytic etching in the academy and he developed a horizontal system which is very suitable for application in educational situations.

For 13 years he had his own graphic studio in the forest in the east of the Netherlands and this environment was his inspiration. In 2016 he  started a studio in the Haute Saone in France.