Charley Toorop

“some pictures of her paintings: on the website of Museum of Modern Realism”

“biographical notes of Charley Toorop, in Dutch RKD-Archive, The Hague”

“There is too much method, too much cliché in the work. One knows nowadays in advance what one will see in a portrait of Charley Toorop. The wide-eyed gaze; the forced colors in the face; the painting of the flesh like carved wood and polychromed; the merciless contour of the hair against the background; the cloddy-like enlargements and intensifications, they don't surprise for long and don't convince us anymore. translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

“We can often characterize the painting art of Charley Toorop as Veristic. She is an Expressionist who wants to be un-expressionistic with an expressionist passion, as indeed many Vérists do. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

“..[in] that gigantic self-portrait we again recognize something of the rite, with which the minister assures us that not the lower, but the Higher is our most precious property. Not a spark of humor has been left here [in her 'Self-portrait', 1932-33] for us poor non-painters.. ..Good Lord, how un-humoristic, heroic, yes dithyrambic one must consider herself, to be able to paint yourself in such a way as Charley Toorop did here. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

“She gives a painting art that calls the things of life, without frills, without fuss, not tragic of emphasis, or elegiac of presentation. She presents the images of hard life, which is not only beauty. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

“As main motif in front ànd large a sled with cheese sparkling orange-yellow - the product [is] carried by two porters, of which the foremost barely and only partly visible - the porter behind, on the other hand, as the only main figure of the whole painting, in his head [expressed] the whole clenched closeness of the Northern Netherlands, in which culminates the serious character of the work.. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

“1. Never knock on doors, or even worse - to open closed doors, 2. always on time for dinner, 3. Do not mess up, 4. never unwashed at the table. Everything else was allowed. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

“She gets moved by the old quarter [Paris, 1921] where she lives, by the people who sleep at night under the Seine bridge, by the young women with hollow eyes in the bistro. She gets touched by pity and moved by the beautiful, colorful pithiness of the people in this old quarter. That emotion, that compassion she expresses.. .Primitive, direct, instinctive is what she expresses, but with a fervor of impetus, a passion of surrender that pulls along, that makes you forget that this work is not beautiful. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

“The Paris' public will initially stare surprised at these expressions of a heavy and gloomy passion.. ..where the Frenchman must first and foremost be struck by the absence of anything specifically considered as feminine and - [what] is not unfamiliar to many male artists: coquetry.. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

“Vincent van Gogh was already there for me even before I started painting myself, actually during the time I became aware. It was the first dispute with my father [ Jan Toorop ] who saw it so differently, for me he was the breakthrough to a new world. It is always a real event to see his work.. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

“I've nailed them to the cross.”

“I managed to work two mornings on Eddy's portrait in the large painting 'Three Generations' and I could go on working each morning for 1 1/2 hour., so there is some progress [after her attacks].. ..they [her son Edgar Fernhout and his wife] come now every month for a stay of a few days [in her house De Vlerken, in Bergen], for I hope to finish the painting at the end of the year, so I can exhibit it at my large retrospective exhibition. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

“I know very well that Communism is the only power that will be able to cope with the ever-growing fascism and the increasing power of the Roman Catholics, and that therefore we all have to cooperate, but I can't now; once I am recovered you can count on me.. .I believe in Russia and Russian communism and from here and also through it [will develop] a new life form and also a religious form of existence. I am a great admirer of Berdyaev.”

“I don't believe you can really give yourself to a man, you can sympathize with him, if you have your own strong creative life, which brings your own philosophy of life.”

“Frankly speaking, I hate modern German art [she means Neue Sachlichkeit ].. .I don't believe it is art. It's Journalism. If you see a work of Braque, there is culture. Yes, it is interesting [German modern art], but interesting is a nasty word; that is precisely a word that fits that kind of art, especially on [[Otto Dix|[Otto] Dix]]. Those people don't develop. They start by immediately systematizing everything. Their intellect is against them.”

“.Now nicely going on to work [painting] and much more free, and in particular more flowing. I hope to grow away from that rigid stuff. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

“I have an idea - that still-life with the two bouquets I still have here.. .It will fit in your home perfectly - and I would really like to see it hanging there myself.. .You don't have to pay it at once if that doesn't suit you now. Then pay me in 2 times 100 for example,. in the beginning of next year?. .You will be happy with it - ànd - the painting is in the right place.. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

“Maybe you don't know enough about the facts - I mean my life history. Probably you can discover everything in my works well enough, but.. .. perhaps it would be good if I visit you some evening, or you, or you two, for some days here with me [in Bergen ]. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

“Made desperate attempts - worked for 3 weeks on a self-portrait [in Paris] intended for you, have scratched off everything yesterday! Maybe I can go on with it again in the studio [she was would get on the Rue des Plantes in Paris]. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”