Anton van Anrooy
Anton Abraham van Anrooy was a Dutch painter and illustrator, naturalised as British.
Life
Van Anrooy was born in Zaltbommel in the Netherlands, son of Peter Gysbert van Anrooy and his wife Josephine Maria Louisa. He studied architecture at Delft Polytechnic until 1892 and then art in evening classes at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, where he was taught by Adolf le Comte, Frits Jansen and Paul Tetar van Elven, until 1896, when he moved to London, where he remained for the rest of his life. He was naturalised as a British citizen in 1915.During World War I he was an official war artist for the Netherlands. He was later awarded the Order of Orange-Nassau.
He painted in oils, watercolours and pastels, producing mostly portraits, interiors and still lifes. He also designed posters, particularly for the railway companies LNER and GWR. One of his best known works is his 1928 poster showing the Amsterdam Marathon Tower advertising rail travel to the 1928 Olympics from Harwich. His work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics, to which he submitted a portrait of Henri Deterding, and the 1932 Summer Olympics.
In the last decade of his life he was much interested in photogrammetry and its advancement.
He was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours in 1915. He also exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Walker Art Gallery, the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts and the Goupil Gallery.
He married Rachel Stewart Sharp Keith in 1912 but had no children.