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Evert Pieters, born in Amsterdam in 1856, left for the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp at the age of 23. After a stay in Belgium and Paris, he settled in Blaricum, where the Gooi farming population inspired him to paint sunny farm interiors with mothers and children playing and gardens in bloom. His southern, colorful palette distinguishes him from other Gooi painters such as Albert Neuhuys and Hein Kever. Like no other he could paint the reflection of the sunlight on blond cobblestones, the blotchy shadow of a blossoming tree and the brightly colored flowers in the grass, in his strong, loose brushwork. During this time in Gooise, the Pieters family also became friends with art collectors William and Anna Singer, who also bought Pieters' work. Pieters had great success with his work, especially with the Americans who visited our country. The painter also excelled in painting beach scenes with shrimp and shell fishermen in Katwijk.
Pieters was born into a fairly poor family and was apprenticed to a house painter at a young age. At the age of nineteen he moves to Antwerp in the hope of building a better life as an apprentice decorator. He attends evening drawing classes at the Antwerp Academy. In his spare time he prefers to paint figures and portraits. The Belgian landscape painter Theodoor Verstraete is impressed by Pieters' work and offers him to become an apprentice. Together they go into nature to paint landscapes. In the meantime, Pieters also paints interiors and still lifes to earn a living.
He only returns to the Netherlands at the age of 39. He roams throughout the Netherlands in search of places that can inspire him for his work. In 1895 he married Marie van de Bossche; together they travel to Paris and Barbizon, where Pieters gets to know the work of the French Impressionists. The incidence of light in their paintings prompts him to deal differently with the reflection of light in his own paintings. After France, the Pieters settle in Blaricum, where the painter discovers the theme of the interior scene. In the Netherlands, his work was initially only moderately appreciated, in contrast to America. Pieters cannot even become a member of Pulchri Studio in The Hague; this only succeeds after the intervention of Jacob Maris.
After a stay in Italy, where he is recovering from an operation, Pieter's work becomes a lot lighter and he increasingly paints flowers and portraits. In 1905 he moves to Katwijk aan Zee, where the boats are still pulled by horses on the beach and where fashionable holidaymakers have not yet taken possession of the village. Many painters of the Hague School, but also foreigners, had settled there to record the simple fisherman's life. For three years, Pieters would devote himself there to painting shell fishermen, sunsets near the sea and beach scenes. After returning to Blaricum in 1908, he continues with these themes. When he exchanges Blaricum for Laren in 1917, he has a special corner in his studio decorated as a farmer's interior and in the garden he has permanent models pose. From that moment on, the Netherlands discovered his talent and over the years he became one of the most famous painters in Laren.s
