Han Van Meegeren - Career As A Legitimate Painter

Career As A Legitimate Painter

In the summer of 1914, van Meegeren moved his family to Scheveningen. That year, he completed the diploma examination at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. The diploma would allow him to teach, and soon he took a position as the assistant to Professor Gips, the Professor of Drawing and Art History, for the small monthly salary of 75 guldens. In March 1915, his daughter Pauline (later called Inez) was born. To supplement his income, Han would sketch posters and paint pictures (generally Christmas cards, still-life, landscapes, and portraits) for the commercial art trade. Many of these paintings are quite valuable today.

Van Meegeren showed his first paintings publicly in The Hague, where they were exhibited from April to May 1917 at the Kunstzaal Pictura. In December 1919, he was accepted as a select member to the Haagse Kunstkring, an exclusive society of writers and painters, who met weekly on the premises of the Ridderzaal. In his studio at The Hague, opposite the Royal Palace Huis ten Bosch, van Meegeren would paint the tame Roe Deer belonging to Princess Juliana. He made many sketches and drawings of the deer and in 1921, painted Hertje (The fawn), which became quite popular in the Netherlands. He undertook numerous journeys to Belgium, France, Italy and England, and acquired a name for himself as a talented portraitist. He earned stately fees through commissions from English and American socialites who spent their winter vacations on the Côte d'Azur. His clients were impressed by his understanding of the 17th century techniques of the Dutch masters. Throughout his life, van Meegeren would paint pictures to which he would sign his own signature, which differed greatly from the marks he used on his forgeries.

By all accounts, infidelity was responsible for the breakup of van Meegeren’s marriage to Anna de Voogt; they were divorced on 19 July 1923. Anna left with the children and moved to Paris, where from time to time, van Meegeren would visit his children. He now dedicated himself to portraiture and began producing forgeries to increase his income.

In 1928, he was remarried, in Woerden, to the raffish actress Johanna Theresia Oerlemans (also known under her stage name Jo van Walraven), with whom he had been living for the past three years. Jo had previously been married to art critic and journalist Dr. C H. de Boer (Karel de Boer), and she brought their daughter, Viola, into the van Meegeren household.