Lot 7: CHARLEY TOOROP (1891-1955)

SIGNED AND DATED (MAKER'S MARKS)
signed; signed, dated 1940 and titled on the reverse

76 by 105 cm.

oil on canvas

's-Gravenhage, Gemeentemuseum, Gerijpte kunst 1946, no. 188

A.M. Hammacher, Charley Toorop, Rotterdam 1952, p. 193

N.J. Brederoo, Charley Toorop, Leven en Werken, Utrecht 1982, p. 200 illustrated on the photograph: Charley painting Beemster Bloeiende boom; p. 309, no. 363

M. Bosma e.a., Vier Generaties, Een eeuw lang de kunstenaarsfamilie Toorop/Fernhout, Utrecht 2001, p. 22, illustrated on the photograph no. 21: Charley painting Beemster Bloeiende boom

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

Brederoo's catalogue mentions 1940 as date of origin for this work. However, in scrapbook V of Charley Toorop the caption states Beemster 1943. mei (Toorop-Fernhoutarchief, RKD)

Charley Toorop was a great admirer of Vincent van Gogh. She was deeply moved by the way van Gogh saw and painted reality. Through van Gogh's work she could break free, artistically, from her father, Jan Toorop. For her, it meant a breakthrough to a new world. Like van Gogh, Charley took the real world as a starting point. She never reproduced the real world photographically, but formed reality into her own image, her own reality. She tried to paint the essence of things.

Charley knew all the important art movements and in her early work influences of luminism and cubism can be seen. In the thirties she worked tirelessly on her own style. Eventually, after a long search, she came to a very personal, powerful form of expressionism which is best classified with the term neo-realism, but Charley was never part of a specific movement or school. A very personal characteristic is the monumental way in which she approached her work.

In 1934 Charley started painting outdoors. Since then, she painted the blossoms in the spring and the fruit on the trees in the autumn every year, like a returning cycle. Charley was very close to nature and studied it thoroughly. She was always conscious though, that she was the observer, the translator of the world around her.

She had to leave the studio/house "de Vlerken", which had been a meeting place for friends of her, like Eva Besnyo, Pyke Koch, Gerrit Rietveld and many others, because of the evacuation of Bergen in 1943. From the 1st of March 1943 Charley stayed at several addresses. For lack of a studio, she painted outdoors a lot. During her stay in de Beemster in 1943 she worked on Bloeiende Boom (Blossoming Tree).

This work clearly and convincingly shows her conflict between expressionism and realism. A canvas filling cutdown of a tree, full of blossom, through which we can see the shimmering blue of the spring sky. Through an expressive style of painting with clear and bold brushstrokes, she has captured spring: powerful and tender at the same time.