Henriette Ronner Knip
Henriette Ronner-Knip (1821-1909) was born in Amsterdam to the family of the artist Joseph Augustus Knip (Josef Augustus Knip). She created paintings depicting pastoral landscapes, castles, farms, still lifes, portraits, as well as genre scenes. Over time, the artist began to pay more and more attention to the image of animals. A characteristic trait of Henrietta Knip at that time was precision and attention to detail, she used dark colors, which speaks of the influence of her father's neoclassical style. After 1845, the main characters of her paintings were dogs. In 1870, a cat appeared in the artist's house and won the attention of the hostess with her movements, looks and relationships with others, which was very surprisingly accurately reflected in her paintings.In addition, the topic of pets was very popular with the middle class citizens, and the paintings sold well. Henrietta Ronner-Knip moved in this direction, painting playful or sleepy cats, using all the same dark colors, until the surging modernist trend called her art boring and conservative. Most likely, this is what made her abandon a strictly built composition in her later paintings and use lighter colors.
Henrietta Ronner-Knip died on March 2, 1909 in Brussels. Throughout her creative career, she has received many prestigious awards and honors. Henrietta Ronner-Knip's paintings are in large museums (in The Hague, Amsterdam, Brussels, etc.), as well as in private collections.
