Roelof Paul Citroen (15 December 1896 – 13 March 1983) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

-born

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

artist, art educator and co-founder of the New Art Academy in Amsterdam. Among his best-known works are the photo-montage Metropolis and the 1949 Dutch postage stamps.

Biography

Early life

Citroen was born and grew up in a middle-class family in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

to Hendrik Roelof Citroen (1865–1932), a

Dutch Jew The history of the Jews in the Netherlands began largely in the 16th century when they began to settle in Amsterdam and other cities. It has continued to the present. During the Netherlands in World War II, occupation of the Netherlands by Naz ...

from Amsterdam while his mother, Ellen Philippi (1872–1945), was from a Berlin Jewish family. His father owned a fur shop and passed away in Berlin just before the onset of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

while his mother died due to illness at the

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concent ...

. His sister Ilse Citroen (died with her husband at the

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

) was the mother of

Sanne Ledermann Susanne "Sanne" Ledermann (7 October 1928 – 19 November 1943) was a German Jewish girl who was killed by the Nazis in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Susanne is best known for her friendship with diarist Anne Frank and her sister Margot Fr ...

, a friend of

Anne Frank Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – )Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new light on Anne Fra ...

. At an early age, Citroen began drawing, provoking strong support from his parents. He soon started to experiment with photography with

Erwin Blumenfeld Erwin Blumenfeld (26 January 1897 – 4 July 1969) was an American photographer of German origin. He was born in Berlin, and in 1941 emigrated to the United States, where he soon became a successful and well-paid fashion photographer, working a ...

and studied art in Berlin. As a painter, he was a Dadaist. As a visual artist in photography, he used the Bauhaus Style of physical portraits, many times with the subject peering intensely into the camera. In 1919 Citroen began studying at the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

, where he started taking lessons from

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

and

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

(part of

Der Blaue Reiter ''Der Blaue Reiter'' (The Blue Rider) is a designation by Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc for their exhibition and publication activities, in which both artists acted as sole editors in the almanac of the same name, first published in mid-May ...

) and

Johannes Itten Johannes Itten (11 November 1888 – 25 March 1967) was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus (''Staatliches Bauhaus'') school. Together with German-American painter Lyonel Feininger ...

, who became one of his biggest influences. Around this time, he started ''Metropolis'' (1923), which became his best-known piece. Citroen's Metropolis influenced

Fritz Lang Friedrich Christian Anton Lang (; December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976), known as Fritz Lang, was an Austrian film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later the United States.Obituary ''Variety'', August 4, 1976, p. 6 ...

to make his classic film ''

Metropolis A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big c ...

''. Between 1929 and 1935, Citroen made many

photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...

s, clearly influenced by his work with Blumenfeld. Citroen's work was included in the 1939 exhibition and sale ''

Onze Kunst van Heden Onze Kunst van Heden (Contemporary Artists/Our Art of Today) was an exhibition held in the winter of 1939 through 1940 at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Due to the threat of invasion in the years leading up to World War II, the Netherlands' go ...

'' (Our Art of Today) at the

Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the St ...

in Amsterdam.

Later life

He soon started up the Nieuwe Kunstschool (New Art School) with Charles Roelofsz. It ran out of money and closed down in 1937. That year, Citroen became a

scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertise in an area of study. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researche ...

at the

Royal Academy of Art The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

. When Citroen was warned that he was due to be arrested on August 28, 1942, he fled to Maria Helena Friedlaender (nee Bruhn), a German woman, wife of

Henri Friedlaender Henri Friedlaender (1904–1996) was an Israeli typographer and book designer. He co-founded the Hadassah Printing School and served as the first director of the school. Early life He was born in Lyon, France, in 1904 to a British mother, Rose ...

. She hid him with other fugitives in the attic of her house in Wassenaar, South Holland, for several months. Among his many students are

Kees Bol Cornelis "Kees" Bol (September 21, 1916 – September 16, 2009) was a Dutch painter and art educator. His work was exhibited in art galleries and museums throughout the Netherlands, as well as in Paris. In 1950 Bol was awarded the Thérès ...

, Madeleine Gans, Henk Hartog, and Jos Zeegers. He designed his monumental postage stamps in 1949. In 1960 he stopped teaching and started painting portraits as his main focus. He painted portraits of famous Dutch people, including a well-known portrait of

Liesbeth List Elisabeth Dorathea List, generally known as Liesbeth List (December 12, 1941 – March 25, 2020) was a Dutch singer, stage actress and television personality. She became popular during the 1960s and frequently collaborated with Ramses Shaffy. Sh ...

in 1979. Paul Citroen died in 1983 in

Wassenaar Wassenaar (; population: in ) is a municipality and town located in the province of South Holland, on the western coast of the Netherlands. An affluent suburb of The Hague, Wassenaar lies north of that city on the N44/A44 highway near the Nort ...

Public collections

Gemeentemuseum Den Haag The Kunstmuseum Den Haag is an art museum in The Hague in the Netherlands, founded in 1866 as the Museum voor Moderne Kunst. Later, until 1998, it was known as Haags Gemeentemuseum, and until the end of September 2019 as Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. I ...

* Hermann-Hesse-Museum,

Calw Calw (; previously pronounced and sometimes spelled ''Kalb'' accordingly) is a town in the middle of Baden-Württemberg in the south of Germany, capital and largest town of the district Calw. It is located in the Northern Black Forest and is a ...

* Literatuurmuseum, Den Haag *

Museum De Fundatie Museum de Fundatie () is a museum for the visual arts in Zwolle, Netherlands. Museum de Fundatie forms part of the Hannema-de Stuers Foundation, to which Kasteel het Nijenhuis in Heino also belongs. Museum de Fundatie possesses a collection of vis ...

Zwolle Zwolle () is a city and municipality in the Northeastern Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Overijssel and the province's second-largest municipality after Enschede with a population of 130,592 as of 1 December 2021. Zwolle is o ...

Rijksmuseum Amsterdam The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the Ste ...

* Prentenkabinet Rijksuniversiteit, Leiden *

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

* MoMA, New York *

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

References

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Discover painter, watercolorist, draftsman Paul Citroen

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Citroen, Paul 1896 births 1983 deaths Bauhaus alumni Dutch Jews Jewish painters Artists from Berlin 20th-century Dutch painters Dutch male painters Royal Academy of Art, The Hague alumni Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the Netherlands Anne Frank