Willem Bastiaan Tholen Dutch, 1860-1931

Gouda, Museum het Catharina Gasthuis, 27 November 1993 – 14 February 1994
Assen, Drents Museum, 23 april-5 June 1994

Mr. Dr. R.S. Bakels, W.B. Tholen. 150 Reproducties naar werken van zijn hand. Met een biografische inleidng door Mr. Dr. R.S. Bakels. Den kunstenaar op zijn 70sten verjaardag aangeboden, The Hague 1930, ill.no. 8
A. de Jong, Willem Bastiaan Tholen 1860-1931, Assen 1993, p. 66-67, illustrated in colour on p. 133 (plate IX)

executed circa 1888

“I see in Tholen a man who consciously carries on the rich and fine mental tradition of the Hague School, yet he is no follower”, wrote the critic Brunt in the journal Eigen Haard in 1910.

Willem Bastiaan Tholen was born in Amsterdam on 13 February 1860 but he spent his childhood in Kampen. From a very young age, he showed a great deal of drawing talent and his parents decided to send him to the academy of Fine Arts where he studied for a secondary school teaching degree in drawing. Later he continued his education at the Polytechnische School in Delft. With two degrees, he was ready for a teaching career but he found it too hard going. Tholen turned to Gabriël in Brussels and asked him for advice. Tholen stayed in Brussels for three months where he worked under the supervision of Gabriël. In 1880, Gabriël visited Tholen’s parents in Kampen. Tholen and Gabriël painted the surroundings of Kampen, the peat-cutting, the lakes and the then unspoiled Giethoorn. Meanwhile, Tholen had come into contact with the Witsen family. He was a regular guest at their country house, the Ewijkshoeve near Baarn. Here he met Coba Muller, his future wife. She convinced Tholen to give up teaching and devote himself completely to painting. After his marriage, Tholen, together with the Arntzenius family, moved into the Kanaalvilla, situated near the Wittenbrug in The Hague. Tholen’s contacts with the painters of the Hague School date from that time. In 1901, Tholen ordered to have a flat-bottomed boat built, a ‘lemmeraak’ called the Eudia, with which he made trips across the Zuider Zee while painting. On his seventieth birthday he was given a book with the title W. B Tholen, 150 Reproducties naar werken van zijn hand met een biografische inleiding door Mr. Dr. R. S. Bakels.

Tholen died in The Hague on 5 December 1931.

Tholen painted, especially in his early days, several townscapes of The Hague, which differed greatly from the views the painters of the Hague School had on The Hague. The latter emphasised the rural aspects of The Hague: the mills on the outskirts of the town, the vegetable gardens, the low houses at the Kazernestraat or the canals and waterways. Tholen, possibly inspired by Breitner, chose for the bustling town centre with its many figures, carts and barges. The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto even has a piece with a view of the newly built Passage in The Hague in its collection, which was an unthinkable subject for a true painter of the Hague School. Tholen could also be found in the new districts of The Hague, particularly in the surroundings of Duinoord and the Statenkwartier.

During his later years, Tholen focussed on the seaports along the Zuider Zee, like Enkhuizen, Vollenhoven and Volendam. Despite the thematic similarities with Breitner’s townscapes, their approach differed greatly. Breitner highlighted man and animal with the emphasis on labour in the big city while Tholen wanted to provide an overall impression in which the figures never played the leading part. The atmosphere by Tholen is determined by a magnificently rendered incidence of light, a fine and complicated spatial layout and suggested movement, which is accomplished by a very brisk and accurate brush technique.