Charley Toorop. Love for Van Gogh
Past exhibition
For Charley Toorop, Vincent van Gogh is a great source of inspiration. His work makes such an impression on the young Charley that it is one of the reasons she eventually chooses to become an artist. Like Van Gogh, she travels to the Borinage and Provence and she shares his passion for depicting real people and nature. Van Gogh's influence is visible, particularly in the work she creates between 1921 and 1925. This is the first time that Toorop's love for Van Gogh has been the subject of an exhibition. You will see around 60 works by Charley Toorop, some of which have rarely been shown.
Lifelong admiration
Even though Charley Toorop's work has an originality and power all its own, this doesn’t mean that she did not have an eye for the work of other artists. On the contrary. Toorop admired the painting of Bart van der Leck and Piet Mondriaan, but also foreign contemporaries such as Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger. Nevertheless, she believes that Vincent van Gogh – even more than her father Jan Toorop – was at the inception of her artistic practice and she has admired him all her life. For her, his work was ‘the breakthrough to a new world’.
'Vincent van Gogh was there for me even before I started painting, actually when I became aware. It was the first dispute with my father who saw things so differently; for me it was the breakthrough to a new world. It has always remained an event to see his work.'
Charley Toorop, februari 1953
Exhibition overview Charley Toorop. Love for Van Gogh
Charley Toorop, Patient of the Willem Arntsz House, 1924
From the Borinage to her social commitment
Charley Toorop's admiration for Vincent van Gogh is illustrated on the basis of several themes, including her representation as an artist and as a human being, her pilgrimage to the Borinage, her travels to Paris and the south of France, her social commitment and her attitude regarding people and nature.
In addition to Toorop’s paintings and works on paper from the Kröller-Müller collection, works are included from the collections of the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Museum MORE, Museum De Wieger and from various private collections. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication in collaboration with Waanders Uitgevers that examines the relationship between Charley Toorop and Vincent van Gogh in depth.
Exhibition overview Charley Toorop. Love for Van Gogh
Largest museum collection
Like Van Gogh, Charley Toorop occupies a special place in the collection of the Kröller-Müller Museum. Helene Kröller-Müller and her art advisor Henk Bremmer recognised something more profound in both artists, because they ‘went their own way, uninfluenced by the spirit of the age’. Thanks to the acquisitions made by Kröller-Müller between 1916 and 1938 and important later additions, including a bequest from the Hague collector C.A. Hoogendijk in 1977, the Kröller-Müller Museum now possesses the largest museum collection of Charley Toorop's work.
Read the exhibition texts
The exhibition was made possible thanks to the support of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Helene Kröller-Müller Fund, the VriendenLoterij, AkzoNobel / Sikkens and Eye Filmmuseum. For the publication, the museum also received a contribution from the De Gijselaar-Hintzenfonds and the Vereniging Vrienden Nieuwe Kunst.
