Charley Toorop

Charley Toorop's (1891-1955) deep admiration for Vincent van Gogh dissected in four fascinating essays.

Charley Toorop's work has its own originality and power. That does not mean that she had no eye for the work of other artists. On the contrary. Toorop admired the paintings of Piet Mondriaan, but also of foreign contemporaries such as Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger. Yet there is one artist who, according to her, was at the cradle of her artistry and for whom she subsequently had respect throughout her life: Vincent van Gogh.

For her, his work was 'the breakthrough to a new world'. Her fascination is explained in four essays and placed in a broader context. Among other things, the essays discuss her travels to the Borinage and the South of France where she sees the landscape and the people through Van Gogh's eyes, her awe for Van Gogh's 'deep, harsh love of reality' placed in the social and political engagement of the interbellum and her interest in the mental state of man.