Theo van Hoytema (1863-1917), Old farmer, c. 1900

Theodoor van Hoytema was born in The Hague, the youngest in a family with seven siblings. Orphaned at a young age, he decided early on that he was destined to become an artist. By 1890, he established a studio in Pax Instrantibus, a simple garden house near castle De Brinckhorst, outside of The Hague. Hoytema was the first artist in the Netherlands who integrated lithographic illustrations with text in Hans Christian Andersens’s The Ugly Duckling. Published in 1894, it immediately gained success and established Hoytema as a sought-after multidisciplinary artist. At the International Exhibition in San Francisco in 1915, Hoytema won a gold medal.

The influence of Japanese art and English illustrators such as Walter Crane are apparent in his work, as are the Art Nouveau stylized elements prevalent at the turn of the century. Almost his entire output whether they are paintings, drawings, graphic work or applied arts, have animals as a subject. With a focus on graphic works, Hoytema kept his sketches and drawings mounted in portfolios organized by subject spanning a period of three decades of artistic output. Rarely did he sign or date drawings and therefore it is difficult to establish a chronology. Suffering from a chronic illness, most likely syphilis, Hoytema’s artistic output is limited to the beginning of the twentieth century.

When Hoytema died in 1917, as per his wish, the majority of his oeuvre entered the collections of the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, while over one-hundred drawings of animals and landscapes were sold at auction. The present pastel was the only fully executed portrait in the sale, an outlier in Hoytema’s dedication to the animal kingdom.

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Theo van Hoytema (1863-1917)

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