Born in Amsterdam on 29 October 1889 to parents who owned a hat shop on the Haarlemmerstraat, Paulina Maria Lousie (Pau) Wijnman studied at the Rijksnormaalschool voor Teekenonderwijs at the Rijksmuseum from 1907 to 1910.[1] After completing her training, she worked as a drawing instructor at Amsterdam’s school for lower and continuing education. In 1915, Wijnman married artist and musician Johan van Hell (1889-1952), which did not result in increased artistic production or recognition. Like many women artists of her generation, Wijnman was largely relegated to applied arts: she designed book covers and taught costume history, while her husband’s career flourished.

However, Wijnman put emancipation into practice. Through her involvement with the Association for the Improvement of Women’s Clothing (Vereeniging voor Verbetering van Vrouwenkleeding, VvVvV) she advocated since 1913 for the abolition of the suffocating and unhealthy nineteenth-century corset. Her work contributed significantly to the development of functional, comfortable clothing and to the professionalization of sewing education.

Wijnman appears to have accepted limited recognition as an autonomous artist. In a group exhibition with Van Hell at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1924, critics barely mentioned her contributions. During her short career, Wijnman produced works on paper and prints. After being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1927, her artistic production diminished rapidly. Wijman died on 2 October 1930 at the age of forty.

Possibly the mystical writings of theosophist M.J. Schoenmaekers (1875-1944) introduced Wijnman to ideas concerning geometry, color, polarity and spiritual structure. A former Catholic priest, Schoenmakers studied at the Meadville Theological School in Pennsylvania from 1911 to 1912 and went on to become a spiritual thinker of considerable influence on Mondriaan and other avant-garde artists. Likely circulating with overlapping Christian social circles, Wijnman absorbed his spiritual philosophy rooted in Western esotericism offering artists a renewed sense of religion. Schoenmaker’s conception of mathematical geometry as the underlying structure of the universe, based on polarities such as inner and outer, masculine and feminine, provide a framework through which nature’s mystery could be visually articulated.

Wijnman’s pastels may allude to Christian symbolism of the New Man: figures that shield themselves from threat, symbolizing the struggle between Good and Evil, or the Madonna and Child. The symbolic use of color, as proposed by Annie Besant in Thought Forms, resonates strongly in these works. Several hues appear to correspond directly to Besant’s color chart of emotions and spiritual states. Following theosophical color coding, Love for Humanity (Good) is surrounded by Unselfish and Pure Affection, while the black of Malice (Evil) remains omnipresent. The Mother and Child are rendered through colors associated with the Highest, Strong, and Low Intellect, Devotion, and Affection, underscoring the constant tensions between spiritual elevation and moral threat.