Paul Bodifee

John Peter Paul 'Paul' Bodifée (Deventer June 29, 1866 - there, January 23, 1938) was a Dutch painter and printmaker. He worked in a style akin to the Hague School and was best known for his landscapes and cityscapes in Overijssel.

Life and work Bodifée was the son of Joseph Bodifée bailiff Matthias (1826-1906) and Elizabeth Hendriks (1829-1867), and seventh of eight children. He followed the HBS training as an art teacher and then took painting classes at the National Academy of Arts. He opened a studio in New Amstel, and was a member of the Arti et Amicitiae. Later he also became a member of Pulchri, in The Hague, which many Hague School painters were members. Between 1889 and 1893 Bodifée lived in Ravenstein, where he was an art teacher. Then he settled in Deventer, where he started teaching at HBS. Lesson In 1896 he married Rosa Elisa Lion (1868-1937), daughter of an architect in Nijmegen, with whom he had four children. The contacts with the family of Rosa Bodifée encouraged in his artistic development. They made ​​music a lot and made study trips to Barbizon. In his study Bodifée made ​​studies of seventeenth-century Dutch masters. For 1900, he mainly painted portraits and figure paintings, but eventually he found his calling in the final show of nature. He painted "en plein air", sometimes together with his students, which he visited by bicycle (painter suitcase behind) or by public transport characteristic places in Overijssel and in particular Salland, including in Giethoorn. He also made cityscapes Deventer, Zutphen and Nijmegen. He also designed sets for theater performances, and he painted the walls of the Society of Artists' Pictura Veluvensis, of which he was a member. He received regular orders for graphics, especially for calendars and record albums. In 1923 he made a watercolor for the album 'National Tribute' on the occasion of Queen Wilhelmina's 25-year reign. Bodifée mainly painted in a style akin to the Hague School, with a free-impressionist hand and with a typical use of color, often green-gray tones, complemented by blue. The composition is usually displayed at eye level. He died in 1938, shortly after his wife Rosa. His work can be seen in the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem and Museum De Waag in Deventer among others. In 2012 its total archive was Deventer transferred to the City Archives and Library Athenaeum.