Betsy Osieckartist • painter • watercolourist • draughtsmanAmsterdam 1880-1968

The youngest of the group of women painters known as the Amsterdam Joffers was Betsy Osieck. Like her fellow artistic ‘sisters’ she continued to paint in Amsterdam well into an advanced age. Lizzy Ansingh first taught her to paint (1902), followed by lessons at the capital’s Rijksacademie. In her studio, situated near the Hoogesluis at this period (around 1912) and later on the Herengracht, she mainly painted portraits and robust, almost masculine-looking floral still lifes, broadly set down in striking colour. Her marriage to H.K. Westendorp heralded a new era of much travelling and little painting. Later, after 1941, she generally painted still lifes in velvet browns and greys, church interiors and well captured city scenes in her studio in the Westhove apartment building on the Amsterdam Lairessestraat. During her many travels she also painted series of small watercolours.