Marie Heijermansartist • painterRotterdam 1859-1937 Amsterdam

Marie Heijermans was an independent thinking artist, coming from a gifted and socially engaged family. Her brothers were the playwright Herman Heijermans and the Amsterdam physician Louis Heijermans. She herself often used her work to achieve socialist ideals. She received her first drawing lessons from Suze Robertson. She then took lessons at the academy and went to Brussels to learn to draw from a nude model with Ernest Blanc Garin, which was not possible in the Netherlands. She held her first exhibitions there and soon made a name for herself with her impressionist portraits and genre scenes. Around 1909 the home industry had her special interest. Although this form of industry was accompanied by poverty and misery, it often led to picturesque interiors that were described by critics as 'special, original, sensitive and very honest'.