Jan Toorop

Jan Toorop is among the most renowned Symbolist painters in the Netherlands, but few people know that he worked in a far wider range of styles. In his quest for a distinctive personal style, Toorop experimented with Impressionism, Pointillism and Art Nouveau. It was not until 1891 that – looking beyond Dutch borders to artists like Ensor, Van Gogh and the Symbolists – he hit on his own distinctive Symbolist style. The everyday world was banished from his work in favor of highly imaginative and visionary images. The guest curator of this exhibition, Gerard van Wezel, has spent the last thirty years conducting in-depth research on Toorop’s oeuvre. His involvement has enabled the Gemeentemuseum The Hague to gather all of Jan Toorop’s principal masterpieces in the first complete overview of his work ever to be presented in the Netherlands.