Louis Soonius - Zittend naakt - Sold

Lodewijk (Louis) Soonius (1883-1956) is a draftsman and painter from The Hague who is best known for his beach scenes with playing children and donkeys. Lodewijk Soonius and his twin sister Margaretha were born in 1883. Soonius grew up in a Roman Catholic family in The Hague. His father, Wilhelmus Johannes Soonius, was a vegetable grower and his mother, Maria Amerentia Hartwig, took care of the children full-time.
His first drawings date from 1900, when he was not yet 17 years old. In it he captures the changing cityscape of The Hague. In the same year he started as a painter at the Plateelbakkerij Rozenburg. The hour books testify to his drawing passion: full of sketches of sets and interesting figures. At Rozenburg Soonius met Chris Beekman with whom he became friends. Around 1905 he started his lessons at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, where he associated with the Frisian Ids Wiersma. In 1913 Soonius won the Royal Subsidy for Free Painting, the present Royal Award for Free Painting. This subsidy allowed Soonius to fully focus on painting, as evidenced by his resignation from Rozenburg. Together with Chris Beekman and Aris Knikker they rented a studio in the Noorderbeekdwarsstraat, but this was short-lived because a fierce argument, the cause of which is unknown, caused Soonius and Beekman to quarrel. After the First World War, Soonius joined the Haagsche Sketch Club where he often exhibited nudes. There he gained more fame, which brought him into contact with various art dealers who brought his work to the attention, such as Kunsthandel Kreijns & Zoon's at Delftschevaart 40.​ In the late 1920s Soonius got into financial difficulties, which led to extra income making illustrations for novels at publisher JN Voorhoeve. The 1930s, on the other hand, were very fruitful. Soonius had various exhibitions, including at Kunsthandel Sena and Huize Koninginnegracht 77, his childhood drawings of The Hague were purchased in 1933 by the Association for Monument Preservation and in 1939 Soonius painted the portrait of Queen Wilhelmina for the Bataafse Petroleum Maatschappij, which is widely used in all national and regional newspapers were measured. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, Soonius' work was on display in the exhibition Our art of the present in the Rijksmuseum. In the 1950s Soonius would continue to paint until he died in 1956.