Woman in a Black Hat, probably Annie Oud-Dinaux

In 1926 Charley Toorop had founded an artists' society with an unusual idea behind it, putting architects, painters and sculptors into the same exhibition rooms. It was called Architecture, Painting, Sculpture, and it often showed at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. In 1928, the year of this portrait, she worked there on an exhibition with the architect J.J.P. Oud, an early member of the De Stijl group. The woman in the black hat is probably his wife, Annie Oud-Dinaux. For a long time nobody knew who the sitter was, and the name came only after lengthy research, which is why the title still says probably. Toorop signed and dated the canvas in the lower left corner. Annie Oud-Dinaux outlived her husband by almost three decades and looked after his archive, and the Frans Hals Museum credits her work with helping De Stijl become known around the world.