Charley Toorop (24 March 1891 – 5 November 1955) was a

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 ...

painter and lithographer. Her full name was Annie Caroline Pontifex Fernhout-Toorop.

Life

Charley Toorop was born in

Katwijk Katwijk (), also spelled Katwyk, is a coastal municipality and town in the province of South Holland, which is situated in the mid-western part of the Netherlands. The Oude Rijn ("Old Rhine") river flows through the town and into the North Se ...

. She was the daughter of Jan Toorop and Annie Hall. She married the philosopher Henk Fernhout in May 1912, but they divorced in 1917. Her son

Edgar Fernhout Edgar Richard Johannes Fernhout (August 17, 1912 - 4 November 1974) was a Dutch painter. Life Fernhout was born in Bergen, North Holland. He was the son of the artist Annie Caroline Pontifex "Charley" Toorop and the philosopher Henk Fernhout ...

(1912–1974) also became a painter. Her other son, (1913–1987), became a filmmaker, and often worked together with Joris Ivens. As a filmmaker he sometimes used the name John Ferno. Charley's daughter in law was the well-known Jewish photographer Eva Besnyö (1910–2003), who married John in 1933. In the on-line biography of the Dutch poet Hendrik Marsman on the website of the Charley Toorop is mentioned as one of the women who had a relationship with Marsman before he married in 1929 his wife Rien Barendregt.

Work

Charley Toorop became a member of the group of artists called ''Het Signaal'' (The Signal) in 1916. The group aimed at depicting a deep sense of reality through the use of colours and heavily accentuated lines and through fierce contrasts of colours. This is one of the reasons why Toorop is seen as adherent to the Bergense School. Toorop befriended other artists, among them

Bart van der Leck Bart van der Leck (26 November 1876, Utrecht (city), Utrecht – 13 November 1958, Blaricum) was a Dutch painter, designer, and ceramicist. With Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian he founded the De Stijl art movement. Son of a house painter, h ...

and

Piet Mondriaan Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being o ...

. In 1926 Charley Toorop went to live for two years in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

, where her painting became influenced by film. Frontally depicted figures stand isolated from each other, as if lit by lamps at a movie set. Her still lifes show kinship to the synthetic cubism of

Juan Gris José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...

. From the 1930s onwards, she painted many female figures, as well as nudes and self-portraits in a powerful, realistic style. Well-known is her large painting ''Three Generations'' (''Drie generaties'') (1941–1950; in the

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Municipal Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen () is an art museum in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The name of the museum is derived from the two most important collectors of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and Daniël George van Beuningen. It is located a ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...

), which is a self-portrait, a portrait of her father and of her son Edgar, in which she unites both realism and a sense of symbolism. Her ruthless realism has a magic touch. "Is the natural appearance reality," she wondered in 1917, "or can we sense in its form only the most unreal that appears before us? This unreal, which is the most real." Toorop had lived at many different places, but from 1932 on she resided in

Bergen, North Holland Bergen () is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Its North Sea beaches and forests make it a popular destination for tourists. In 2001, the municipality was formed from a merger of the former municipaliti ...

, a town she'd previously had her home between 1912-1915 and 1922–1926. There she designed and commissioned a house called "De Vlerken", situated at the Buerweg 19. The house is still there, although after a fire its thatched roof has been replaced by a tiled roof. Charley Toorop died in Bergen on November 5, 1955. Her works are in many public collections, notably in the

Kröller-Müller Museum The Kröller-Müller Museum () is a national art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo in the Netherlands. The museum, founded by art collector Helene Kröller-Müller within the extensive grounds of ...

in Otterlo.

Literature

* Rembert, Virginia Pitts (2005) "Charley Toorop" in: ''Woman's Art Journal'', 26, no. 2, (2005): 26–32. * Bremer, Jaap B.J. (1995) "Charley Toorop : works in the Kröller-Müller Museum collection", Otterlo : Kröller-Müller Museum. , .

Exhibitions (selection)

* November 11, 2008 – April 5, 2009: ''"Werken op papier" - Charley Toorop (1891–1955)'' (prints), Museum Kranenburgh,

* September 27, 2008 – February 1, 2009: the

showed her work in the exhibition "Vooral geen principes!". * September 4, 2004 – March 13, 2005: an exhibition of her work was held at the

Groninger Museum The Groninger Museum () is an art museum in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. The museum exhibits modern and contemporary art of local, national, and international artists. The museum opened in 1874. The current post-modernist building co ...

in Groningen. * January 12, 1982 - April 12, 1982: retrospective exhibition of Charley Toorop in

Centraal Museum The Centraal Museum is the main museum in Utrecht, Netherlands, founded in 1838. The museum has a wide-ranging collection, mainly of works produced locally. The collection of the paintings by the Northern Mannerist Joachim Wtewael is by a lon ...

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...

Public collections

Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Municipal Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen () is an art museum in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The name of the museum is derived from the two most important collectors of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and Daniël George van Beuningen. It is located a ...

* in

Otterlo Otterlo is a village in the municipality of Ede of province of Gelderland in the Netherlands, in or near the Nationaal Park De Hoge Veluwe. The Kröller-Müller Museum, named after Helene Kröller-Müller, is situated nearby and has the world's ...

* Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar in Alkmaar *

in Groningen *

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 on ...

The Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

Notes and references

External links

Self portrait with palette, Kunstmuseum The Hague

biographical notes of Charley Toorop, in Dutch RKD-Archive, The Hague

some pictures of her paintings: on the website of Museum of Modern Realism
{{DEFAULTSORT:Toorop, Charley 1891 births 1955 deaths 20th-century Dutch women artists 20th-century Dutch painters Dutch women painters Dutch people of British descent Modern painters People from Katwijk People from Bergen, North Holland Dutch lithographers Women lithographers 20th-century lithographers