B.J.(BERNARDUS) BLOMMERS 1845 Den Haag - 1914 Den Haag Playing children in the surf
Oil / Canvas: 34,5 x 46 cm
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Width: 46 cm
Over B.J.(BERNARDUS) BLOMMERS
Bernardus Blommers was de youngest member of the painters of the Hague School. This meant that he had extremely talented older mentors such as Christoffel Bisschop and Jozef Israëls to lay the solid fundamentals for his artistic education. Starting his career in Scheveningen, his subjects were invariably sunny scenes of children playing on the beach, fisherwomen mending nets, the fish markets, and the waiting for the fishing boats to come home at the end of the day. When Scheveningen became too fashionable, he moved to the still authentic fishing village of Katwijk to become in time one of its more prominent artists together with Jan Toorop and Willy Sluiter. He depicted a more carefree atmosphere on the beach and among the fishermen than his teacher Jozef Isaels. Internationally his fame grew after his first trip to the US in 1904 and met with President Theodore Roosevelt. Ten years later he returned to the Unites States with a commission from the Dutch government to paint Andrew Carnegie’s portrait to thank him for building the UN Peace Palace (intended to house the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and to house the largest library in the field of international law and peace) in The Hague. The portrait can still be seen there today. In 1911 Blommers succeeded in securing The Netherlands a pavilion at the Biennale of Venice. His paintings are part of collection in the more important museums in the Netherlands but also in museums in Boston, St.Louis, Glasgow, Worcester and Munich.
