Richard Roland Holst (1868-1938)
Richard Nicolaüs Roland Holst studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten under August Allebé. After 1918, he became a teacher at the academy and served as its director from 1926 to 1934. In 1896, he married Henriette Goverdine Anna “Jet” van der Schalk, Holland’s most famous poet and Nobel Prize nominee.
Roland Holst was a celebrated artist known for his prestigious murals for the Beurs van Berlage and the Burcht van Berlage, respectively the Amsterdam commodity exchange and the office of the Diamond Workers’ Union, as well as the Supreme Court. Together with Jan Toorop, Roland Holst organized the first retrospective exhibition of Vincent van Gogh in Amsterdam in 1892. Roland Holst’s design for the catalogue cover depicts a wilting sunflower marked by a halo, symbolizing the untimely death of Van Gogh and his saintly status. Roland Holst was also first to draw attention to the importance of Van Gogh’s writing in relation to his painting practice. He strongly valued collaborations with artists and architects and is often referred to as a “community artist” while his wife could be alluded to as a communist artist.
Born in Noordwijk in 1869, Henriette grew up in an affluent, liberal Christian family. She attended four years of boarding school, followed by French studies in Liège. After meeting Jan Toorop in 1892, she dedicated to him her first sonnet, “I'm not a woman now; I'm just a poet now”.
Her idealism and convictions led her to socialism, while she later joined the international communist movement. Friends with Rosa Luxembourg and one of the few people in The Netherlands who personally knew Lenin and Trotsky, Henriette played a prominent political role and participated in the Second International. Dissatisfied with the socialist party, “Rode Jet” (‘Red Jet’) co-founded the Dutch Communist Party in 1915, advocating for a revolution that never materialized. After visiting the Soviet Union in 1921 for the first time, she witnessed the harsh realities of communism and became disillusioned, eventually leaving the party.
Henriette suffered from depression, anorexia, anemia, and heart disease, but when she was well, she relentlessly advocated for workers, youth, and women. Active as a politician, journalist and writer, she made significant literary contributions; from translating The Internationale anthem into Dutch to writing plays and biographies of Gandhi and Tolstoy. During the Second World War, Henriette was active in the Dutch resistance. She was an editor and writer for underground magazines and provided shelter to those in hiding on her farm in Noord Brabant, steadfast in her belief in solidarity and social justice.
Provenance
Henriette Roland Holst-van der Schalk (1869-1952), AmsterdamWillem Hoogendijk (1932-2023), Utrecht
De Zwaan Auction House, Amsterdam, 15 May 2024, lot 6105