Woman Standing in a Doorway

Nicolaas van der Waay was a resident of Amsterdam from 1871 to 1875, where he enrolled in the Rijksacademie, won acclaim for a painting, “Among Friends,” and, among other things, met his future wife. He traveled to Italy for additional artistic training and when he returned, he became a professor at the Rijksacademie, a position he maintained for thirty years. In 1922, Van der Waay joined an organization that promised to bring art to the “common people;” among them were then-students Piet Mondrian and Jan Sluijter. 

While many artists of this moment turned to landscape representation, Van der Waay concentrated on figural works, but he adopted a freer, more impressionistic approach that he absorbed from his contemporaries, especially his close friend Isaac Israels.