Anton van Anrooy

Van Anrooy was born in Holland and educated at Delft University, graduating in 1891 as a civil engineer with a State diploma. He later studied at the Hague Academy of Art before moving to England in 1896 where he lived in Hampstead before moving to Kilburn in north-west London. He became a naturalized British citizen and was best known for his work mainly in oil, watercolors and pastel. He was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy and also the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-Colour (of which he became a member in 1915) and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters.

He was noted for portraits, landscapes and still life and he provided artwork for many publications and literary works. In 1931 his portrayal of Isambard Kingdom’s bridge over the river Tamar at Saltash was used for the Great Western Railways poster. He was honored with the Order of Orange Nassau and was the official war artist for the Netherlands Armed Forces.

The Portrait of Sir Henri Deterding is reproduced in a contemporary newspaper report about the art competitions. Deterding, chief executive of the Royal Dutch / Shell Oil Company and one of the richest men in the world, is depicted in a hunting suit with a red jacket. The Poster with the Marathon Tower advertised in Great Britain travelling by canal ferry to the Olympic Games in Amsterdam. The image is a lithograph; the poster has the size of 102 x 63 cm.