Charley Toorop, a Dutch born painter and lithographer, was born in
Katwijk, Netherlands on March 24th 1891. She was the daughter of Jan Toorop
and Annie Hall. She married the philosopher Henk Fernhout in May 1912, but
they divorced in 1917. Her son Edgar Fernhout (1912–1974) also became
a painter. Her other son, John Fernhout (1913–1987), became a filmmaker,
and often worked together with Joris Ivens. As a filmmaker he sometimes used
the name John Ferno. Charley's daughter in law was the well-known Jewish
photographer Eva Besny� (1910–2003), who married John in 1933.
In the on-line biography of the Dutch poet Hendrik Marsman on the website of
the Dutch Literary Museum, Charley Toorop is mentioned as one of the women
who had a relationship with Marsman before he married in 1929 his wife Rien
Barendregt.
Toorop had lived at many different places, but from 1932 on she resided in
Bergen, North Holland, a town she'd previously had her home between
1912–1915 and 1922–1926. There she designed and commissioned a
house called “De Vlerken”, situated at the Buerweg 19. The house
is still there, although after a fire its thatched roof has been replaced by
a tiled roof. Charley Toorop died in Bergen on November 5, 1955. Her works
are in many public collections, notably in the Kr�ller-M�ller Museum
in Otterlo.