Who is Harald Seiwert and what is the provenance of the 'ChickenMan' artwork traced to Flickr?
Executive summary
Harald Seiwert is a Netherlands-based visual artist and photographer whose work appears on multiple artist platforms and a personal portfolio site [1] [2] [3] [4]. The image known online as “ChickenMan” traces to Seiwert’s published and online output — it appears on Flickr (at least since 2009) and is identified in reporting as an edited artwork by Seiwert that predates and is unrelated to claims it depicts a real scene from the Epstein files [5] [1] [2].
1. Who Harald Seiwert is — an artist with a public footprint
Seiwert is presented in multiple public artist listings and portfolio pages: he maintains a Flickr account based in Amsterdam and is followed there by an audience [1] [2], has a profile on Saatchi Art [4], appears on YouPic [6], and publishes a web portfolio of selected work covering 2002 onward [3], which together establish him as an active visual/Photoshop artist with exhibitions and online presence [7] [3].
2. The “ChickenMan” image’s online provenance — Flickr and a 2004 book citation
Fact-check reporting locates the image on Flickr under the title “ChickenMan,” with an online presence noted from 2009, and links the picture to a printed source — Seiwert’s book Cumrades, published in 2004 — which is the chain reporters used to connect the photograph to Seiwert rather than to any documentary or legal file [5].
3. The artwork’s production — Seiwert’s Photoshop-based method
Contemporary reporting cites a 2003 blog post quoting Seiwert confirming that the piece (referred to there as “Chicken”) was created with Photoshop — specifically that digital editing was used to compose or adjust elements such as color consistency and to add a human figure into the scene — meaning the central figure is a deliberate digital construction rather than an unedited documentary capture [5].
4. How the image got tangled with the Epstein narrative — circulation and correction
Several social posts and activists circulated the image as if it were a real scene from the Epstein files, which planted the misleading impression; fact-checkers and journalists traced the image back to Seiwert’s artwork and flagged the claim as erroneous or deceptive, with reporters explicitly noting the image is an artwork and that messages asserting it as a real photograph from Epstein materials are inaccurate [5] [8]. Investigators further identified a specific social post (by Mario Nawfal on X) that amplified the mistaken framing even as analysts and fact-checkers pushed back [5].
5. Remaining limits and the balance of evidence
Available reporting consistently identifies Seiwert as the originator of the composed image and points to a Flickr posting and an earlier book credit as provenance [5] [1] [2]. What the cited sources do not supply is direct documentary evidence from the Epstein files themselves linking the image into any official legal repository, and none of the provided materials prove the image ever appeared in court exhibits or authenticated investigative records; the best-supported public account is that it is a Seiwert artwork later misrepresented online [5] [8].