Jan Zoetelief Tromp Dutch 1872-1947

Jan Zoetelief Tromp started his artistic education in 1887 at the Academy in The Hague. He continued his training at the Academy in Amsterdam headed by August Allebé (1838-1927), a Dutch genre and still life painter who influenced him heavily. Through the training he received from this tutor, Zoetelief Tromp acquired a preference for depicting the human figure.

In the beginning of his career Zoetelief Tromp´s style and subject matter were close to that of Laren School-painters Albert Neuhuijs (1844-1914) and Anton Mauve (1838-1888). This explains his move to Blaricum in 1899, after his marriage to the daughter of the painter Bernardus Johannes Blommers (1845-1914). Just like most Laren School-painters, he preferred to depict local children and their parents in and around their farmhouses, kept in dark tonalities.

From 1905 onwards Zoetelief Tromp and his family spent their summers in the coastal village of Katwijk, where eventually they would live on a permanent basis. In this period a change of style manifested itself in Zoetelief Tromp´s work. His work evolved from accurately drawn to a more fluent, impressionistic style. Shapes became more indistinct and his palette grew more luminous, a change in which critics like Albert Plasschaert (1866-1941) recognised the influence of his father-in-law. Not only his style but also his subject matter changed. Instead of the sweet pictures of a mother with her children in and around the Laren and Blaricum farmhouses, he now painted scenes of children, returning from the fields and in the dunes, with or without their parents, a little goat or aprons filled with flowers.

The present lot is a good example of the beach scenes Zoetelief Tromp started painting in 1915. These paintings, which earned him his greatest fame, often depict his own children playing with sand hills or toy boats. Such bright and colourful compositions with clear blue skies, flying coloured ribbons, pink, purple, yellow or blue clothing, blond hair and red cheeks radiate an enormous joy and optimistic view on life. Clearly this optimism was innate to the painter.