Elisabeth (Betsy) Stoffers, born on June 28, 1881 in Haarlem, was the daughter of tobacco merchant Hendrik Stoffers and Jacomina Maria Hendriks. From an early age she proved to be a talented draftswoman. To encourage her talent, Stoffers attended the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam at the age of seventeen in 1898, where she took classes with August Allebé.

For the longest time, Allebé, director of the Rijksakademie, opposed equal admission of women at the art academy. In the interest of good tone and order, he believed that the study after nude models should be available only to male students. According to Allebé, a (male) nude model in the classroom could not but “give offence to ladies of the civilized class, and to the less civilized cause for less desirable representations”. At the end of 1896, women at the Rijksakademie finally received the same education as their male fellow students.

After many years of struggle, aspiring female artists finally had the same educational opportunities as men. Although drawing education was accepted as part of a well-to-do education, academy education for women was not considered a necessity as it was considered unfeminine to pursue a career in the arts. The common perception that women could practice the visual arts only out of leisure pursuit would stand in the way of professional recognition for a long time to come. Although women were admitted to the Rijksakademie from 1871 on, they did not receive an equal education. Excluded from classes for advanced students, such as the anatomy classes reserved for men required to paint history or a mythological scene, women were restricted to genres held in lower regard, like portraits and floral still lifes. This limitation also affected female participation in competitions, as, for example, work after a male nude model was one of the requirements for the prestigious Prix de Rome.

Stoffers’ artistic career was brief, and she participated in few exhibitions. She was a member of the Amsterdam artists’ society Arti et Amicitiae. Although her early work shows a strong kinship with the Amsterdamse Joffers (‘Amsterdam Misses’), a group of female artists who also studied at the Rijksakademie, Stoffers remained an outsider.

In 1905, Stoffers married Louis van Vreumingen and relocated to Gouda, where she established a studio and was promising productive during the early years of her marriage. After the birth of her second child in 1910, her artistic career appeared to abruptly come to an end and Stoffers has no longer access to a studio. The arrival of twins in 1914 further solidified the perception that her art career had ceased.

The unexpected discovery of thirty-two abstract pastels—signed ‘E.Stoffer’ and ‘BS’—in a Leiden estate in 1980 suggest that Stoffers maintained a secret short-lived artistic calling.[1] Although her painting practice may have ended, she created these vibrant drawings between 1915 and 1918. Without a proper studio, pastels became her preferred medium of expression. Through her chosen abstract style, Stoffers demonstrated a strikingly modern vision, far ahead of her time.

Her friend and neighbor, the Dutch potter and designer Chris Lanooy, may have played a role. Lanooy also produced pastels during this period, featuring contrasting hues and organic ornamental shapes, used as designs for his ceramics while Stoffer’s more abstract pastels stand alone as autonomous works of art. Characterized by flowing, feminine forms, and an almost ethereal quality, her drawings break entirely with visible reality, reminiscent of Hilma af Klint’s and Georgia O’Keeffe’s spiritual compositions.

Whatever her source of inspiration, Stoffers’ abstract pastels—expressing emotions such as anguish and joy—represent a bold departure from her academic training and a significant contribution to early abstraction in The Netherlands. Like Stoffer’s pastel in the Rijksmuseum, The Good Genius and the Evil One bears a poetic explanation on the verso, dated 30 December 1917:

De goede genius [The good genius]

En de kwade. [And the evil one.]

Deze twee wonen [These two dwell]

in een ieder onzer. [in each one of us.]

De een wil het goede doen. [One wants to do good.]

De ander al wat slecht is volbrengen – [The other to accomplish all that is evil –]

[1] Frédèrique van Duppen, in: Vrouwenpalet 1900-1950, haar kunst, haar verhaal, Zwolle 2022, p. 52