Jan Toorop was a versatile artist who was able to reproduce his subjects with a superb economy of line. His etching technique in drypoint and his woodcuts characterize his style. Jan Toorop was also asked to make designs for industrial products. His style was essentially Art Deco. At a later stage in his career he became a Symbolist. Jan Toorop was an ambassador for the art world too. He and Piet Mondrian were the driving force behind the establishment of the artists’ village of Domburg in Zeeland.
The first work by Toorop that we are offering you is of his studio and dates from around 1879. Jan Toorop was then twenty-one years old and studying in Delft at what was then the Polytechnic School (now Delft University of Technology). This work appears in the artist’s oeuvre catalogue currently being produced.
The second work is dated 1912 and is from Toorop’s Symbolist period. The title of the work ‘Lord save us, we perish’ refers to the Bible story of the storm on the Sea of Galilee, (Matthew 8:23-27). This water colour is illustrated in ‘Late Symbolism’, the book about Jan Toorop which came out in 2002.
