Jo Koster

Jo Koster came back from Brussels convinced that a painting could be built from separate strokes and dots of pure colour. She had gone to study, was caught by neo-impressionism, and for the first two decades of the 20th century that stitched, shimmering technique became her signature.

Born in Kampen in 1868, she took drawing lessons as a schoolgirl and then spent six years at the art academy in Rotterdam, a serious training at a time when few Dutch women pursued one. In 1902 she settled in Zwolle and opened her own drawing and painting class. Through those years she returned again and again to the village of Staphorst, renting a room so she could paint its farm workers and their strict traditional dress from up close.

She never married, and worked steadily in portraits, landscapes and still life until the last months of her life. She died at Heelsum in 1944, one day short of her 76th birthday.