Charley Toorop: A Painter’s Life (1891-1955)
A stunning biography about one of the most striking Dutch artists of her time and a key figure in twentieth-century modern art.
Charley Toorop. A Painter’s Life honours a woman who laid out her entire being on canvas. Shedding light on her work, her eventful life, the art world and the age in which she lived, this book explores each fibre of Toorop’s work, influences and inspiration. Toorop herself and her dazzlingly deep, visionary paintings, some of which were inspired by Magic Realism, played a highly significant role in the visual culture of the first half of the twentieth century.
Charley Toorop dedicated her heart and soul to her paintings, balancing her work as an artist with a tumultuous private life. A mother of three, Toorop was engaged in a string of romantic affairs and befriended key artistic and literature figures in the interwar period. She spent much time with Piet Mondriaan and was inspired by Picasso.
Akin to many of her contemporaries, Toorop sought an alternative visual language – another lens through which to view society. For some time, she was inspired by the work of Vincent van Gogh, travelling to the locations at which he painted.
Charley Toorop’s paintings are radically personal, with her portraits achieving global fame. Her paintings are hyper-realistic while retaining an air of the ethereal, of the visionary: they are alive with emotions, commanding a peculiar intensity and a bitingly acute sense of perception.
In his biography, Krul portrays the figure of a strong, independent woman Charley Toorop was keen to present to the world while shining a light into the cracks of her doubt, confusion and self-torment. That ambivalence and struggle would mark both her life and her work.
A breathtaking portrait of the art world in early twentieth-century Western Europe.
Charley Toorop, a rejector of conventions, was a central figure in the art community at the time.
This book presents the conflict between motherhood and art in a time when female artists’ work was all but disregarded
Wessel Krul was a professor of modern art and cultural history at the University of Groningen. He has published titles on a large range of subjects relating to historiography, art history and art theory spanning the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. His acclaimed biography of Boijmans museum director Hannama was published in 2018.