Lizzy Ansingh

Lizzy Ansingh came from an artistic family as both her grandfather, Johann Georg Schwartze (1814-1874), and her aunt, Thérèse Schwartze (1851-1918), were painters. Ansingh herself had studied in Amsterdam and was a member of the so-called Amsterdamse Joffers, which included Marie van Altena Regteren, Coba Ritsema, Ans van den Berg, Jacoba Surie, Nelly Bodenheim, Betsy Westendorp-Osieck, and Jo Bauer-Stumpff. The importance of this group was primarily to function as role models for younger women painters in the Netherlands, especially during and after the 1970s. In addition to portraits, Lizzy Ansingh was well-known for the painting of dolls, and also wrote two children’s books. In 1935 she was made a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau.

In Sport in Beeld, the reviewer wrote about her painting: the “already sentenced to death Steeplechase by Lizzy Ansingh, a work, which has only this one value to show how little understanding some artists have of the subjects with which they are dealing.” Less critical was De Groene Amsterdammer the same year, “So much innocent gaiety spent in such an orderly chaos of shapes and colors disarms all knowledgeable criticism.”