Curator's Choice: Toorop
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The portrayed
The persons who are gathered together here actually never got together in reality. Charley Toorop regularly regularly held dinner parties in her house ‘De Vlerken’ for friends and her - by now grown-up - children. The various people with whom she had ties for the most diverse reasons are brought together here. There are also people who she wanted to have in the work, but they are missing. That applies, for example, to film-maker Joris Ivens - the teacher of Charley’s son John - who, in the period that she was working on the canvas, was abroad and could not sit for her. Since Charley Toorop could only work from models - and not, for example, from photographs - he is missing in the painting.
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Pyke Koch
There is a story about Pyke Koch - who was self-taught as painter - that he was put under so much pressure by Charley Toorop when he exhibited for the first time as artist that he did so under a pseudonym because he was afraid of her criticism. Koch and Charley Toorop were very good friends. Their friendship cooled when Koch joined the national socialism in the ‘thirties. The large painting ‘The shooting gallery’ that Koch painted in 1931 was made shortly before ‘Meal of friends’. It also hangs in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
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Gerrit Rietveld
In 1932, Charley Toorop asked furniture maker and designer Gerrit Rietveld to modernise the interior of her house ‘De Vlerken’. Her father Jan Toorop had had this house built for her in Bergen (NH) by the architect Piet Kramer. The house, in the Amsterdam School style, had an interior dominated by dark tones. Rietveld radically modernised it, for example, by painting the brick walls white. This wall acts as background in the ‘Meal of Friends’. In addition he furnished the house with furniture he made himself. Photographs show, among other things, the lamp dating from 1924; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen also owns one. In addition, the museum owns various other pieces of furniture by Rietveld.
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John Rädecker
The sculptor John Raedecker was a lifelong friend of Charley Toorop. He is portrayed with his family: his wife Annie and his son Loeki. The statue at the top left in ‘Meal of Friends’ was made by him and was owned by Charley Toorop. At the time when ‘Meal of friends’ was produced, Raedecker was working on a monument for Charley’s father, the painter Jan Toorop. Jan Toorop was already deceased by then. She gave him portrait photographs of her father, using which he could model his portrait. The bronze study that Raedecker made of her father came into the possession of Charley. She included this study in her painting ‘The three generations’. After her death, it came into the possession of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. The museum owns several other works by Raedecker.
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Self portraits
The self portrait is a recurring theme in Charley Toorop’s work. She made more than 20 of herself, from the very start to the end of her career. Four of these are in the collection of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. In two of these works, she only shows herself; in two others she is part of a group. In an article for the magazine Jong Holland (Young Holland II [1995] 1), Carel Blotkamp has convincingly shown how Charley Toorop in the ‘Meal of friends’ initially only want to include her left hand holding a palette and her right hand painting. Because it didn’t prove possible to execute this construction in all its consequences, she finally decided to include a complete self portrait.
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Eva Besnyö
Charley Toorop added the portrait of Eva Besnyö to ‘Meal of friends’ as last one. This can be seen by comparing a photo in the 1932 annual report of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen with the painting as it now is (it was first given on loan to the museum, then returned to Charley Toorop and in 1935 was donated to the museum). Charley’s younger son, the film-maker John Fernhout, got to know the Hungarian photographer in 1932. They married in July 1933. Charley Toorop placed Besnyö in the painting directly below herself, perhaps simply because there was ‘still room’ there but it also seems to be a symbolic reference to a good relationship. They got on very well with each other, Eva Besnyö made many photo portraits of her mother-in-law, even long after she and John Fernhout had split up.
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Edgar Fernhout and Rachel Pellekaan
Charley Toorop’s elder son Edgar was predestined by his mother from his early youth to become a painter. She placed him in the line of her father, the painter Jan Toorop and herself. She portrayed this ‘dynasty of painters’ in the painting ‘The three generations’. In his early years, Edgar Fernhout painted in a very precise, realistic style. Typical of this is the portrait he painted of his wife Rachel Pellekaan, who was also an artist. It was not until after the Second World War that Fernhout chose a freer painting style (see, for example, the self portrait) and he would ultimately even choose for abstract. Fernhout’s wife Rachel Pellekaan is mainly known as draughtswoman in the period between the wars. She too produced exceptionally detailed and precise scenes from her surroundings.
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Portraits of Charley Toorop
Charley Toorop was painted several times by her father Jan Toorop. The museum owns a number of these works. The painting ‘The new generation’ from 1892 shows Charley as a baby (she was born in 1891). In addition, Jan Toorop made the drypoint ‘Charley in front of the window’ (1898) and he sketched her while she was playing the violin. Charley as the girl playing the violin appears in several of his prints and graces the catalogue of JanToorop’s 1904 exhibition. Although Charley was very musical and she actually considered a career in music, she ultimately chose for art.
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Curator's Choice: Toorop
Jonieke van Es, head of the Collection and research Sector, zooms in on the painting ‘Meal of Friends’ by Charley Toorop, a key piece of one of the most important Dutch painters of the first half of the 20th century. On this painting, Charley Toorop immortalised not only herself, but also others such as the poet Adriaan Roland Holst, the architect Gerrit Rietveld, the sculptor John Raedecker, the photographer Eva Besnyö and the painters Pyke Koch, Rachel Pellekaan and Wim Oepts. In addition, her three children can also be seen in this painting: her sons Edgar (also a painter) and John Fernhout (active as film-maker) and her daughter Annetje Fernhout.
credits
Direction and editing: RoversFilm
Camera and sound: Bas Zwartepoorte
Music: Michiel Thomassen
Subtitling: Einion
Production: museumLAB
