Johannes Paul Vroom was born in The Hague in 1922 as the son of a Dutch father and a French mother. In 1938 he enrolled at the academy in The Hague, where Paul Citroen propagated the educational ideas of the Bauhaus in those years. Subsequently, he was strongly influenced by 'nouveau realisme' and painted portraits and groups of figures in a realistic style. In 1943 he settled in Paris, where he made hyper-realistic paintings related to Pop art. Vroom also became known as an etcher, lithographer, cinematographer and designer of sets and costumes for the National Ballet.