Jan theodoor toorop biography

Jan Toorop Poerworedjo, Java 1858 – The Hague 1928 

Born in Dutch-Indonesia, from a Dutch-Norwegian father and a Javanese-Chinese mother, Toorop spent his childhood on the island of Banka and was sent at the age of nine to Batavia to receive a better Primary School education.

Memories of the exotic atmosphere of his early youth stayed with him throughout his life and influenced him deeply.

Arriving in the Netherlands around 1870, he housed with relatives and connections in several places before, during the years 1876-1878, following courses at the Polytechnical School in Delft.

Thereafter he enrolled as a student at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam (1881-1882).

Jan theodoor toorop biography wikipedia

Together with his Academy-colleague Antoon Derkinderen he left for Brussels in 1882, where he enlisted as a student at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (1882-1884). Soon he became involved in the Artists’ Society L’Essor and its successor Les XX, the latter he joined in 1884.

There he met among others Henri