Rob Graafland artwork • painting • previously for sale Reading girl
Rob Graafland
Maastricht 1875-1940 Heerlen
1875-1940
Reading girl
oil on canvas 80.5 x 60.3 cm, signed l.r. and dated 1936
This painting was previously for sale.
The Maastricht resident Rob Graafland was educated in the decorative arts, but in 1895 chose to become a free artist. He was taught at the Rijksacademie in Amsterdam for three years and then returned to the South as a matured talent. His style can be described as a strongly romantic impressionism in which warm, lively colors predominate and figures are incorporated in a fantastic play of colors full of brilliance and opulence. The painter's favorite themes were the beauty of women, children and dance. As the founder of the Limburg Art Circle (1910), Graafland was considered a pioneer of the Limburg painting school.